


no deadline for getting better

by spottyartful



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Adopted Peter Parker, Adorable Peter Parker, Aftermath of Torture, Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, M/M, Parent Steve Rogers, Parent Tony Stark, Pet Names, Protective Steve Rogers, Protective Tony Stark, Recovery, Superfamily, Tony Stark Swears, i loosely pick and choose what i want from canon, im incapable of writing angst, so this is just an excuse to have three of them cuddling for 10 pages, take a shot everytime tony and steve call peter baby, this is very self-indulgent
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-02-23 11:09:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 33,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23377111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spottyartful/pseuds/spottyartful
Summary: They bring Peter home, eventually, but not soon enough. Peter is skittish and borderline catatonic. Steve blames himself for hurting Peter, no matter how unintentionally, and Tony - Tony does what he can to stitch his family back together.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Steve Rogers, Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 79
Kudos: 289





	1. Chapter 1

They find Peter on the sixteenth day.

Sixteen days too late.

“I left for an hour.”

When they stormed the Hydra base, his kid was already nailed to the cold hard table, limbs spread like a butterfly.

“One hour.”

He was crying when they peeled him of that table. It wasn’t a sight Tony is going to forget in his lifetime.

His kid has been rescued. Sorta.

He wasn’t dying anymore. Tony himself washed the drying blood from his unconscious body.

Peter was back at the Tower, safe for once at the med bay, dozing off on some sweet super soldier painkillers while Tony-

Tony’s body gradually started to shut down. Humans aren’t particularly known for not sleeping for sixteen days, but fuck if Tony didn’t try.

He’s not entirely sure why everybody was so concerned with his lack of sleep. Sleep deprivation is one of the most effective torture methods, and what were the past few weeks if not torture?

But Peter is safe now. He’s small and beaten and _so hurt –_

But he’s safe. And Steve has been _begging_ him to go to sleep. Said that he’ll watch over Peter – and he trusts Steve. He wouldn’t put that gold band on his finger if he didn’t.

So, he nodded and replied _just for a moment. Just to close my eyes._

That was his first mistake.

He had done so many mistakes prior to Peter’s kidnapping, he decided to give himself a clean slate. Everything he had done before, every mistake that led to Peter getting hurt is firmly locked away in the farthest corners of his mind.

Unfixable, and most of all – unforgivable. He’ll die with these regrets before he lets Peter forgive them.

But he’s Tony Stark and fucking up is inevitable in his genes. It’s his only comfort some days, the knowledge that he and Peter aren’t related by blood – and therefore he has no chance of passing down his fucked-up genes that make him a mess that he is.

So, he starts with a clean slate, with lots of space for fresh mistakes. He writes _leaving Peter_ in big bold letters and in a twisted way he’s almost proud. How quick he was to fill that board.

He should have not left the med bay.

“An hour,” he stresses. Anger seeps through his voice, making it darker, heavier. “And you. You put my kid in a fucking cell.”

Bruce raises his hands placidly. Tony doesn’t care. “Tony, please, calm down…”

“Calm down, now?” he snaps. “Gladly, I will fucking calm down, I will calm down after you put him back in a hospital bed, where he should be! _“_

“The medical equipment down here is of the same quality as the med bay, you know it is, please just let me explain-“

“Are those _handcuffs_ -“

“He was being aggressive, Tony.” Bruce fits himself in the space between Tony and the two-way mirror looking into the cell. That doesn’t stop Tony from looking directly at Peter’s small frame, strapped to the bed. “We had to subdue him.”

“You’ve gotta be shitting me, Banner, tell me you did not put my kid in handcuffs-“

“He broke Sam’s hand, Tones,” Rhodey interjects calmly. “Not intentionally, I’m sure. I doubt he was a hundred percent… aware. We had to. For his own safety.”

“You had to? You had to?” Tony fumes. He spits back with all venom he can muster. “And if he broke his leg, were you gonna put him in the Raft too?”

“Tones…”

He passes Bruce and closes the distance between him and the mirror.

The cell is high-tech as is everything in the Tower. He doesn’t recognize the cell per se and can’t recall an event or a criminal they might have used it on. It’s possible it was never used, and maybe that’s the reason they put him there.

It makes him sick, the sight of Peter spread out on the bed, restraints strapped to him at each limb.

He looks away. “What happened?”

He turns to meet a set of hesitant faces. Rhodey looks almost as tired as Tony feels. Bruce looks apologetic and Tony – Tony doesn’t have the patience for that. Not after the last few weeks. So, he turns to the last person who hasn’t spoken yet.

Steve sits on a table tucked away in a far corner of the room. His broad shoulders are uncharacteristically folded on himself and Tony beats himself for not noticing it earlier.

He makes his way towards his husband and grabs his hand from where it was fidgeting on his knee. He holds it in his and just notices how pale has Steve’s skin gone.

“What happened?” he repeats, softer this time.

Steve doesn’t look at him. He doesn’t pull away either, he just gives a vague shrug and nods at Bruce and Rhodey.

“The drugs wore off,” supplies Rhodey bitterly. “We were in the room – Me, Steve, Bruce, and Sam – Natasha was cluing us in the progress. All dead ends, before you ask. I don’t know if it was the pain or maybe too many people present stressed him out, he… He got overwhelmed. When Bruce tried to put him under, he lashed out.”

“Well, of course, he lashed out, he spent the last two weeks poked and prodded by crazy scientists, how was he not going to lash out!”

Steve squeezes his hand, but his expression remains distant. The pressure is just a tad too much for comfort and Tony deduced it was not fully intentional.

“We tried restraining him in the med bay, but Tones…” Rhodey sight. “He’s strong. He broke out of each cuff like it was cotton candy.”

Tony should have stayed in the fucking room.

He drags his free hand across his face. He stepped out of the room for an hour, just for a quick nap. He should have known something was going to go wrong.

This day was lasting sixteen days too long.

“Is Sam… is he okay?”

“I’m sure Cho has already patched him up,” Bruce seems to be at least confident about that. “No permanent damage, the rupture was clean enough. He was restraining Peter’s left hand when the kid struck him. His ego is probably more bruised than his arm is.”

“Bucky’s with him,” adds Rhodey.

Tony nods, not knowing what else to say. Broken arm was good. In their profession, it meant they got lucky. A broken arm could just as easily be a broken spine or a broken neck, something not fixable overnight.

But that also brought new questions. Why was Sam restraining an enhanced teenager in the first place?

“He was scared,” whispers Steve.

Tony whips his head to his husband, finds him looking into the cell. His eyes are glistening and just as quickly he casts them down in shame.

He looks so miserable it tugs aggressively at Tony’s heart. “He’s been through a lot. I’d be pretty scared in his place too.” He supplies quietly.

Steve is shaking his head. “He’s scared – I scared him, Tony… He’s scared _of me.”_

Tony stares.

Steve licks his lips and hangs his head low, looking anywhere but Tony. “He – Tony, he _flinched_ when he saw me, I tried to calm him down, I swear I tried – I –“ he rubs his eyes furiously, smearing the tears over his face. “He started to thrash around the bed like he was – back there again. It’s my fault-“

“That’s not true,” he quips in quickly. “Stevie, you’ve gotta know it’s not true. He’s just – he’s in shock, he doesn’t know any better-“

“I hurt him-” Steve’s voice breaks. “I hurt our child, Tony-”

Something cold sinks down at the bottom of his stomach. “No. No, no, no, that doesn’t sound right to me.” He takes Steve’s other hand in one of his and lifts his chin with his free one. “You know what you did, love? You saved our child. You saved him, we brought him back home, see?” He gestures towards the glass. “He’s right here, and we are here, and that’s a hell lot better than we were at a week ago.”

Steve doesn’t look like he believes in a word he said. His blue eyes look so sad, and Tony brushes under them gently to wipe away escaped tears.

He knows what’s eating away at his husband. Yesterday, when they stormed the Hydra base, when they freed Peter from that wrenched surgical table – everything went to shit, as per usual.

Peter didn’t recognize them. He had no way to recognize them, even if the drugs in his system magically wore off. His face was beaten into a pulp, making it hard to see – not to mention the last sixteen days of torture were more than enough to give him a skewed sense of reality. Tony knows something about that.

He fought them and that’s nothing they shouldn’t expect. It broke Tony’s heart but he understood. And like Rhodey’s said – the kid was strong. Even half-conscious and working on less than seven pints of his blood, he was not pulling his punches. Tony’s got the scrapes of Mark XLVII to prove it.

It was only logical for Steve to hold him down as Clint shoot him up with a sedative. The boy cried and mewled for agonizing ten seconds, staring up at Steve, before going limp in his arms.

He looks back at the mirror, towards Peter. Towards their kid. He looks so frail beyond the glass, his small figure engulfed in the soft white sheets. Tony’s eyes focus on the steady rise and fall of his chest, tries to replicate the same rhythm drawing circles on Steve’s hand.

He can’t look. Not like that. Soft sheets or not, the image of Peter strapped down to the cold metal table is too fresh in Tony’s mind.

“Friday, unlock the handcuffs.”

Bruce raises from his seat in alarm. “Tony, you can’t be serious-“

“Now, Friday.”

The restrains glow with life, then give an audible pop and fall to the side. Peter hasn’t moved.

Tony moves closer to Steve, settles between his legs. He pulls his head to his chest, were Steve rests gratefully.

“We’re not putting our baby in restraints,” he says quietly. Steve’s hair is too short to tuck it behind his ear but Tony tries anyway. He presses a lingering kiss to his husband’s head.

Steve doesn’t say anything, just holds onto him tighter.

Eventually, Tony falls asleep on the table – or he assumes he had. His body hurts enough to consider he might as well fainted and spill all over the cold hard floor of the interrogation room. He just hopes did it somehow gracefully.

In the end, he wakes up in his own bed at the penthouse. Friday tells him it’s shortly past eleven. He doesn’t feel rested, even though he slept for longer than in the last two weeks, combined.

Steve is nowhere in sight and Tony has enough energy to feel bothered by it. In the past sixteen days, his husband didn’t get much more sleep than him. Tony didn’t deserve special treatment.

He spends a few sluggish minutes in the kitchen, promptly swallowing down a cup of coffee, then making another one for the way. With an afterthought, he grabs few granola bars from the cupboard and makes his way down to the holding cells.

Steve apparently upgraded his sitting position from the table to a chair. His blank gaze is fixated on the mirror before him and his head is propped on his arms, overall, he looks tired. When Tony enters, he pulls his eyes from the mirror to meet Tony’s, giving him a tight smile. All the previous annoyance Tony was feeling evaporates.

He sets the coffee in front of his husband. “Excuse me, it seems I’m failing history class. Did the serum gave you some sleep-defiant abilities or are you just a masochist on regular?”

The smile turns into something more genuine. “Sleep-defiant, huh? Did you get injected with such serum yourself? It would explain a couple of things.” 

Tony huffs as Steve steals his coffee and takes a generous sip. He settles himself on a chair next to him, pulls out a granola bar and hands it to Steve. “It’s called cocaine, sweetheart. Get on with the times.”

Steve rolls his eyes but takes the bar gratefully. “I slept for a few hours. I just didn’t want to… leave him alone for too long.”

Tony leans over and kisses him.

For no reason at all. Well, maybe there was a reason. Waking up in an empty bed is something Tony is used to, given Steve’s ungodly training hours. Today it was almost like a taste of normalcy for the first time in the last several weeks.

Tony realized he had missed him. With Peter gone, he didn’t pay much mind to affection but maybe he should have. He wasn’t the only one freaking out of their mind.

He brushes a thumb over Steve’s jaw, relishes in the softness of his skin for a minute. This whole marriage thing is constantly proving to be simultaneously the easiest and the hardest thing he’s ever done. He reprimands himself once again to be a better spouse to Steve, as he does almost daily.

He reluctantly pulls away and gestures towards Bruce. “So, how long it stayed there like that?”

Bruce is sitting in the far corner of the room, his nose buried in a mix of papers and projections. He didn’t even acknowledge Tony coming in.

Steve sighs. “He’s been reading scans for the past hour. Brain, temperature, I don’t know, everything. It says Peter’s awake.”

Tony whips his head around so fast he almost pulls a muscle. Peter’s lying on the bed where they left him, chest rising and falling steadily.

“He’s awake?”

“Friday seems to think so. But he hasn’t moved an inch.”

Tony’s stomach sinks coldly. He looks back at his kid, motionless. He looked so peaceful like he was asleep.

Bruce raises from his chair and pulls the projections towards them. “Everything seems fine. His ribs are completely healed, the shin’s just a hairline fracture by now and there was no damage to the spine.” He pulls forwards the set of scans. “The brain activity suggests he’s awake. All parts light up accordingly. There are no signs of brain damage, and the sedative is long out of his system, it seems-“ he gives a helpless shrug. “For all I know, he’s awake.”

“We tried talking to him,” says Steve. “He just doesn’t respond.”

Tony reads through the scans intently. He’s not a doctor but still doesn’t like what he sees.

“It’s – alright. It’s just an hour, right? He must be tired. It’s nothing.”

Steve doesn’t meet his eyes. “Yeah – it must be. He’s fine.”

Bruce doesn’t get the memo and doesn’t even hide that he’s unconvinced. The crease between his brows deepens nervously.

“We’ll see in a few hours,” he settles on. “A nurse will come by in a few minutes and we’ll try giving him some food. I would also like to take a look at his wrists.”

Tony flinches at the mention. He saw the boy’s wrists before the surgery when both of his arms were sporting gouging open wounds. It wasn’t a pretty sight and possibly the worst part of Peter’s injuries.

Cuts and broken bones were easy to fix, but the wrists – the mere memory made Tony pull his own hands back. The volar was completely destroyed. Delicate tendrils were utterly mutilated, and Peter’s advanced healing left them tangled and beyond recognition. Out of all fourteen hours Cho spent operating on Peter, most of them were spent on repairing the delicate wiring inside his wrists.

Tony nods helplessly. “Yeah. That’s a good idea.”

Steve pulls him back on the chair. “He’ll be alright.”

“I know.”

Steve rips the pack of the granola bar. “Tasha and Clint stopped by earlier.”

“Any progress?”

“They’re working on it.”

“Great. Cool. Awesome,” he replies crankily. “Another thing going smoothly. Just what I wanted to hear.”

Steve smiles and snaps the bar in half, offering him the other part. Tony accepts it and if only to munch on it angrily for a few minutes.

Eventually, the nurse comes by with a food tray. It’s of better quality than a regular hospital food but still not much. Beans, cooked vegetables and – were those mashed potatoes?

Tony grimaces. “Are we really giving him hospital food? Has he not been through enough already?”

Steve snorts. Bruce thanks the nurse and sends him away. “He needs something light after surgery.”

He gives the tray to Steve and looks expectantly between them.

“Okay, I guess we’re doing this.” Tony opens the door.

They walk into the cell in a humble line like a group of students that is late for class. Tony makes his footsteps light because Peter’s ears are sensitive.

He wants to say something but all his wit melts away when he takes a closer look at Peter’s not-sleeping form.

His baby is spread on the mattress, rigid like in a coffin. His hands and legs still rest in the same place the cuffs left him yesterday. He’s looking falsely-relaxed – his breathing is slow and steady, but his whole body remains tense.

Peter always relaxes in Tony’s hugs. He wants to hold him.

“Hey, kiddo,” he starts quietly. “It’s time to wake up, bud. The school’s already over, it’s time for dinner.”

Peter doesn’t acknowledge him.

Tony exchanges quick looks with Steve and Bruce.

“Come on, sleepyhead,” he approaches the bed. “Mama Steve prepared you his hospital special.”

He touches Peter’s hand and his blood pressure stabilizes, just a bit. It’s warm. It’s all Tony can ask for right now.

He brushes gently over his knuckles. Peter remains unresponsive. “We’re gonna get you out for cheeseburgers, soon enough, what do you say? We just need to get the all-clear from the doc first.”

Steve sets the tray on the table. “Tony-“

“I’ve got this, I’ve got this,” he assures with a wave of his hand. “See? Your Pops is here too. Why don’t you open those big brown eyes we missed so much?”

Turns out he has not got this.

Peter stirs an inch. Slowly, he blinks and blinks, squinting at the bright light. Tony smiles encouragingly. A second passes, something like a recognition lights up Peter’s eyes.

Then he bolts from the bed.

Strong hands pull him back quickly and everything that happens is a blur to Tony. A deafening metal screech hits his eardrums, but before he knows it, he lands on his ass by the door.

All his fighting instincts flare to life and he hurries back to his feet, but it’s already over. The bed came flying at some point and now it’s laying on top of Bruce.

“Shit!” he hurries to his friend. Bruce groans from under the frame.

Steve is standing between them and Peter. “It’s alright, Petey, it’s just us.”

Peter is crouched in a far corner of the room. His eyes flicker wildly around his surroundings. Tony can see from twenty feet away that he’s trembling.

It takes a minute for Tony to realize Peter _flipped_ the bed, which was previously screwed into the concrete. Steve must have pulled him out of the way, but the same couldn’t be said for Bruce.

“It’s okay, Peter, we’re not gonna hurt you,” Steve chants quietly.

Tony tries to lift the bed off Bruce, but _fuck, it’s heavy._ He taps a sequence into his watch and the gauntlet starts forming around his arm.

A pained whimper stops him in his tracks. The sound came from Peter, curled on the floor. His body is twisted weirdly like he can’t decide between hiding in the corner and preparing to fight.

Tony retracts the gauntlet. He can’t. “Petey…” He can’t think about this. “Steve, help me.”

With the help of Steve, they swiftly get Bruce from under the bed.

“You okay?” asks Tony, settling him by the door. “You’re not going green on us?”

Bruce shakes his head, still gasping. “Just relieved to breathe air again.”

They turn to Peter who hasn’t moved from his crouched position.

Tony moves to Steve. “You’re alright, kiddie. I’m sorry we scared you. Does anything hurt?”

A long second passes before Peter shakes his head. Tony almost doubles over in relief. “That’s good, that’s great, baby. Will you let me and Pops get a quick look at you?”

Another shake of the head. Tony squeezes Steve’s hand. “That’s okay. Okay. Will you change your mind if I say please?”

“Tony…” whispers Steve.

“Yeah, I know. Didn’t think would work either.”

Steve kneels, dragging Tony down with him. “You’re safe with us, baby bear. We just want to make sure you’re okay.”

Peter backs up to the wall further. Before they have a chance to say anything else, he turns around and puts his bandaged hands to it.

Tony and Steve watch stunned as Peter climbs up the wall. They follow his small frame until they crane their necks and Peter is tightly curled in the corner of the ceiling.

Peter is scared. Peter is _scared_ of them.

Tony’s mind goes blank because that just _isn’t right._

He can feel Steve’s pained gasp on his cheek. “Tony, I-“

He wraps an arm around his husband, staring up at Peter’s trembling frame. “I know.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm serious about the swearing guys

Ever since their first attempt, Peter hasn’t moved an inch. He went completely deaf and unresponsive, and no amount of pleads could bring him out of his shell. They put the bed back together and kept supplying him with fresh meals every few hours, but the teenager showed no interest in coming down.

Natasha and Clint settled a small camp in the corner of the room. They’re going through their contacts and sets of footages upon footages from bajillion different cameras, and surprisingly, they’re doing it almost quietly. Bruce is occupying the other corner, which leaves him and Steve standing in the middle of the room, left with nothing to do but to watch their child locked away in a cell.

Rhodey came back eventually, bearing coffee and a pack of Twizzlers. He distributed the coffee to each one of them and Tony feels like it’s an opening for a joke, like he should say something. A quick comment about _interns_ and _looking for a new job_ sits just on the tip of his tongue.

He doesn’t say anything. Not when his kid is right there in front of him. And he can’t even help him, can’t pull into his arms, make it all go away.

Since when he got so fucking useless.

He snaps when Rhodey hands him a twizzler. “Get that shit out of my face, Rhodey. Not in the mood.”

“Trust you, Tones, to turn candy into some weird sexual banter.”

Tony blinks once. Twice. He hasn’t even realized- “Me? You just heard what you wanted to hear, horndog. I wasn’t even-“

Rhodey smirks. Oh. That’s what he’s been doing.

He plucks the twizzler out of the pack. “Shut up, Rhodey.”

“So, it talks. Good to know.”

He huffs and takes a bite out of the candy. It’s fruity and overly sweet but somehow manages to leave a stale taste in his mouth. He gnaws on it for a minute too long, before deciding it’s too much effort and shoving it in Steve’s hand.

Steve doesn’t notice, gaze fixated on the glass. “It cannot be comfortable.”

He follows his gaze to where Peter is curled up on the ceiling. “He does that sometimes. After nightmares. Or when he’s doing homework.” Tony recalls accusing Peter of the assassination attempts once or twice. All because his weak heart could barely handle the sight of a shadowed figure sitting on a kitchen ceiling at 4 am. “He says he’s smarter upside down because all his blood floods to his head. Except when a week later I told him to get down, so he wouldn’t get brain damage, he replied gravity doesn’t affect him like normal people. To this day I’m not sure which one is bull.”

“We might wanna get him down soon, anyway,” Bruce takes off his glasses to rub his eyes. “I’m a little worried about his wrists since the bandages should be changed hours ago. But to be honest, infection is the least of my concerns.”

“What do you mean?”

“He hasn’t eaten anything since… well, we don’t know. But the IV came off almost fifty hours ago, and he was already malnourished. With his metabolism, I say we’re heading towards a crash.”

Tony wants to bang his head against a wall.

They are okay. They rescued Peter, they are all safe.

So why does it feel like they constantly on a verge of fresh horror?

Rhodey comes in with a helpful “What are you saying, doc? What are we looking at?”

“Fatigue, shakiness… eventually hypoglycemia.” Bruce dragged a hand over his tired eyes. “If he doesn’t eat in the next twelve hours, I’m gonna hook him up on IV again.”

“Not sure he’s gonna take this well,” Rhodey nods towards the glass. “We can ask him, but I don’t think he’s too fond of needles right now.”

He can hear – he can _feel_ Steve’s breath hitching beside him. Rhodey’s voice is low and bitter but the implication doesn’t sting any less.

Tony – once again, and way, way too much in the last weeks – feels useless. He wants to turn to Steve and say something, touch him and assure him that everything will be okay, that he will fix the unspeakable things that were done to their kid because that’s what he does. What is Tony Stark if not a fix-it guy?

A fucking fix-it guy. A guy who got his child kidnapped and tortured. And right now, he can’t even comfort his husband.

He keeps his eyes bored into Peter’s curled form, too scared that if he looks away, he will disappear.

Steve speaks as if it caused him physical pain. “You mean we will need to hold him down.”

“With the straps offline…” Bruce trails off. There’s no malice in his voice, but Tony can feel the pointed stares directed at his back. Natasha and Clint’s especially. He wasn’t in the room when they learned that Tony freed Peter from the restraints, but Steve told him they weren’t on board with this decision.

Tony doesn’t regret his choice and wants to tell them to fuck off. He again – doesn’t. They all have been trapped in this room for the past few days, watching a catatonic teenager stuck to the ceiling. It’s hardly Avengers business anymore. Until the kid starts talking and sheds some light on his kidnappers and Hydra base that is – which honestly is at the very bottom of Tony’s priorities.

Point is, they don’t have to stay. They research quietly in the back of the room and Tony can’t bring himself to tell them off. Something in their pensive stares keeps his mouth shut. He has to remind himself a lot that Clint is a father too and it’s the only thing he’ll ever admit to being proud to have common with the archer. And Natasha… well, in the other timeline where their lives weren’t so messed up, he would smugly inquire how and when the world’s deadliest assassin woven a soft spot in her heart for a fellow doe-eyed spider.

He doesn’t do that either, though. He supposes Peter has that effect on a lot of people.

“No,” says Tony tightly. “We already messed up bringing him down like that at the base. We’re not holding down a traumatized teenager ever again.”

When he turns, he’s met with sad blue eyes. Steve holds his gaze and says quietly, “Not again.”

It’s not your fault, he wants to scream. It is something he firmly believes. He knows, on top of the horrors they have witnessed at the base, his husband dreams are going to be forever haunted with images of bruised arms, marks left there by his own hands. The bruises are long gone what with Peter’s incredible healing, but they’re as fresh in Steve’s memory as the day they saw him at the med bay.

The guilt on his face breaks what’s left of Tony’s shattered heart.

_Hold him, you idiot._

Before he can act on the unwary thought, Bruce speaks up again. “Well, there is another option, but…” he shoots them an uneasy look. “Yeah. Well. It wouldn’t be exactly _starving_ him – he’s doing that part well by himself. But we have pretty much established what to expect while dealing with enhanced metabolism,” he gives vague gesture towards Steve. “I anticipate hypoglycemia kicks him real hard in the next twelve hours. But before that… he might experience some faintness. He’ll probably lose consciousness soon.”

Tony’s mouth feels suddenly very dry. “He’s gonna faint? That’s your other option?” He looks at the teenager in question then back at Bruce. “He’s on a goddamn ceiling!”

“We can try tranquilizing him, but I’m sure he would sense that. That’s not gonna help him open up any more than a normal assault would.”

“No,” snaps Tony. “He’s fourteen feet up, he’s – he’s already injured.”

“It’s too dangerous. He could snap his neck,” adds Steve.

“If we don’t get him to eat, he’ll lose consciousness eventually. You know that.”

“If it comes to that, we’ll catch him.” Rhodey raises his voice with forced calm. “Just like a routine civilian evacuation. We’re six goddamned superheroes, we’ve all caught people jumping out of windows before. Surely a fifteen-year-old cannot be much harder?”

“If he falls.” Interjects Clint with a jerky nod towards the glass. “We’ve seen him sleeping upside-down already. That sounds pretty unconscious to me. Is he even gonna let go of the ceiling?”

“I don’t know,” Tony brings a thumb to his lips. He catches himself before Steve can reprimand him and pulls away. “We never tested that before.”

“What about lil’ ETA? How long can he stay like that?”

“I don’t know,” he grumbles. Useless. Again.

“Okay. What does even make him stick to the ceiling anyway? We could start with that.”

“I don’t know.”

Natasha looks up from her pad for the first time in hours and frowns. “You don’t know?”

“Oh, sorry, are you hard of hearing now too?” Tony snaps because that’s what he’s best at. “Was I supposed to lock him in my lab? Put in more handcuffs maybe? Let’s cut him up in some in some sick experiment, maybe I’ll call up my research buddies from Hydra because guess what! They had the same idea!”

He’s yelling and he’s feeling sick, and _he’s so fucking useless_. He turns to the glass but finds himself unable to look at Peter.

Natasha thankfully has a thick skin and doesn’t even seem fazed by the outburst. “I’m just surprised,” she shrugs.” You’re a scientist.”

“He’s a child, not a goddamn science experiment,” he bites back.

A ghost of a similar fight echoes around his head. He can’t bring himself to look at Steve.

A hand finds his own and gently peels it off a window. Tony hasn’t even realized he put it there.

Steve holds his hand in both of his and brushes over his knuckles because he’s not a piece of shit husband that Tony is, who can’t even pull it together enough to meet his eyes.

He doesn’t have to, because Steve is now tracing little patterns on the back of his hand and it speaks assurance and _I forgive you_ and _stop talking bad about yourself in your head, dimwit_. Tony bows his head and rests his forehead against the glass.

“What do you propose?” Steve asks Bruce, not letting go of Tony’s hand.

“There’s no right answer.” Says Bruce sadly. “We don’t want to ambush him, but he’s not talking to us, and anything we will do is gonna be taken as an attack. In the best-case scenario, we manage to tranquilize him, but he’s gonna burn through that in less than ten minutes. Once he wakes up, he’s gonna be startled, so we would need to strap him down again.”

“Not an option,” mutters Tony.

Bruce sighs. “Our other option is to wait until his metabolism hits the wall and he loses consciousness. In this case, I might have enough time to hook him up to some fluids but once he wakes up, he’s gonna be startled again and lash out. So – straps again.”

“He’s not a dog.”

“It’s for his own safety, Tony,” adds Natasha. “You know Bruce wouldn’t suggest that if there was any other way.”

Bruce’s expression is remorseful. “Please, Tony, think of it as a standard hospital procedure, it’s just restraining a volatile patient. If it were you or Steve or anybody on the team – if there was a mission that left you incoherent and dangerous, you know we would do the same thing.”

“He’s not dangerous _,”_ Tony hisses. “He’s a _child_.”

 _My child_ , goes unsaid, but manages to echo around the room.

He knows they don’t agree with him. For all they know Peter _is dangerous._ Sam’s arm is still in the cast to remind them all of that. They watched the steel frame of the hospital bed crumble under Peter’s fingers like it was made from paper. He’s faster than any of them and can sense them coming with his eyes closed. And he doesn’t recognize them or at least doesn’t believe it them and not some delirious dream - if he’s aware of his surroundings at all.

That by any book should make him dangerous, but Tony _knows_ Peter, and cannot accept that. Dangerous implied something malevolent, something evil, something out to harm them like the boy had any control over his actions.

Peter was _hurt._ He is scared and so, so hurt and Tony will not keep him down like an animal. Peter doesn’t deserve to be thrown from one set of restraints to another, and Tony will not keep him bound like the monsters Natasha and Clint are looking for.

Tony takes a deep breath and steps back from the glass. “Okay. Third option.”

A frown is forming between Bruce’s bushy brows, as Tony continues. “You said twelve hours before the crash, right?”

“His body doesn’t know how to thermoregulate, could be less.”

Tony sniffs. “Okay. We can work with that.” He turns his attention to a curled-up figure in the corner of the ceiling. “Sounds to me like we have about twelve hours to catch the spider and bring him down for dinner.”

A sigh. “Tony…”

“Fri, open the cell,”

There is a collective outburst of screams and people in various states of alarm.

“Friday, don’t,” snaps Rhodey at the ceiling.

“Honey Bear, she might like you better, but I am the one who- “

“Tony, for fuck’s sake,” Rhodey looks less than amused. “What are you doing?”

Bruce gestures wildly. “Did you or did you not forget the last time we went inside I got trapped under a bed?”

“Well, that’s why you’re not going. I am.”

“Pretty ballsy,” admits Clint. “But I thought you wanted to live till Peter’s eighteens birthday?”

“He’s not gonna hurt me.”

“Goddammit, Tony,” Rhodey grabs his shoulder. “I know you love that kid, you don’t have to do stupid shit to prove it!”

What Rhodey needs to understand is that Tony does stupid shit _because_ he loves his kid. But he doesn’t have the patience for arguments like that.

“Twelve hours,” Tony stresses looking from Rhodey to Bruce to two spies in the corner. “Give me twelve hours. I wanna talk to him. If it doesn’t work until that time you can strap him down, put a muzzle on him I don’t care.”

An obvious lie, if the fact that he had to spit it through his teeth was any indication. Instead of looking at Steve, he looks down at their joined hands. He brings his other hand to Steve’s and rubs small circles onto them like Steve had before.

He looks his husband in the eyes. “Twelve hours,” he repeats softer.

Steve seems to be at conflict with his own thoughts. Tony can’t say he doesn’t relate.

Eventually, he squeezes his hand and nods sharply, like he wants to let it out before changing the decision. “I trust you know what you’re doing.”

“I don’t,” cuts in Bruce abruptly. “This is a bad idea, Tony.”

“Wouldn’t be the first one,” he replies turning to the door.

Rhodey is pissed, Bruce worried and he catches Natasha and Clint exchanging concerned looks. He catches a pensive expression on Steve’s face and sends him a charming smile.

He is Tony Stark after all, and 90% of what he does he does out of spite.

“Friday, open the door.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading!! each comment and kudos make me feel itty-bitty butterflies in my tummy and sunshine in my heart. love you!! stay healthy!!

Peter doesn’t move when he enters the room. Tony has no doubt he knows he’s here, but he gives no indication, not even a flinch.

Tony can’t decide whenever it’s good or bad.

He stops shortly by the door and opens his arms so Peter can see them.

“Heya, Petey,” he starts with a small step forward. “Just checking in on you, kiddie. You must be crazy bored up there.”

He can’t tell if Peter’s any more distressed than before. His face is hidden and posture rigid, but then again, he was that way ever since he woke up.

He’s doesn’t move any further away, so Tony entertains a thought that maybe, just maybe he doesn’t see him as a threat, but it’s quickly disproven as Peter shifts distraught in his corner.

He doesn’t run because he doesn’t have anywhere to run.

Tony swallows bile forming in his throat and continues. “It’s just me, kiddo. Just your regular no-powerpuff human. See?”

He makes a show of taking off his watch, even though Peter isn’t looking. He discards it by the door and trusts the boy’s other senses.

“No toys. Just your daily dose of plain old billionaire playboy extravaganza. Not so playboy in the last few years, but I’ll spare you the details, we don’t wanna make you even more sick, right?”

He took some careful steps closer to the wall Peter was occupying. He stops a few feet short, keeping his distance enough to spare the boy from spooking any further.

When Peter gave no indication of hearing him, Tony decides to do what Tony Stark does best.

So, he rambles.

“Okay. Good talk, bud. Nurturing as always,” he couldn’t escape the fondness that painted his voice. He didn’t want to. “Tell you what, how about you let me crash here for the night? The penthouse gets really lonely without you swinging around.”

He keeps his distance and slowly pulls out his phone. Peter’s face is still hidden in his arms.

He leans on the wall and just as carefully he slides down it, cursing his bent backward bones. It’s a taste of consequences the whole Iron Man gig has put on his body.

He brings knees up to his chest, mirroring Peter’s position and holds the phone loosely between them.

“Don’t mind me, kid, serious. I’m just gonna take care of some stuff. Important SI stuff, you know me, always a hard-worker.”

He opens up an app called Candy Craft and pulls the projection up in the air.

“We have the whole night, buddy. I’m on level three hundred and twenty, so I’m hoping to get to five hundred before the party’s over.”

-and before they have to knock Peter out to make sure he doesn’t starve himself. Tony feels like he had been to better partiers.

He tries not to glance at the ceiling too much. He can’t take Peter ignoring him.

Peter is all endless energy and fidgety fingers. He runs his mouth so fast most of the time Tony has to remind him how to breathe. He’s quick-witted both as Peter Parker and Spiderman. It’s one of the few reliefs Tony has on the battlefield – the fact that the kid is just so all over the place, like an oversized toddler, jumping from one building to another. It keeps the chance of his enemies snatching him away close to zero.

Close to zero, thinks Tony bitterly. Not low enough.

It’s unsettling, watching the boy who never knew how to shut up sitting so still.

He wanted to hear his puberty-infected dorky voice again.

“Want some quiet, huh, kid? Well, that’s just too bad. You know between the two of us silence has no standing chance.”

He tips the projection up and starts playing.

“You know this app? It was basically a plagiarized Candy Crush game a few years back,” he continues flipping through the blocks. “It was scamming people for cash and data, but it had cute animations. One of SI employees brought it to my attention after it tricked her little brother into buying a thirty-year subscription. And by brought, I mean she hacked the app and returned the money to every scammed user like goddamned Robin Hood. They sued SI for twenty million dollars as if they would even make that money with their shitty little app.” He snorts and –

He senses the movement before he sees it. Just in the corner of his eye, he can see the way Peter uncurled from his position and shifted out of his vision.

He continues, pointedly ignoring him. “I bought the company before Pepper could return from Malibu and bug me about it. Withdrew the claims overnight, then promoted the little guy’s sister. She’s the head of IT department now.”

He keeps playing, although he cannot keep down the excitement bubbling up in his stomach. “Smart gal. I’m gonna introduce her to your buddy, Ted, one day. Maybe even before he finishes college. I think they would get along.”

Another movement has Tony holding his breath.

Just on the edge of his vision he can see Peter gradually scaling down a wall.

He can feel the tension seeping through the glass on his left. He can almost see the alarmed faces through the two-way mirror as if it wasn’t working correctly. He has no doubt Steve moved to the door ready to jump in if needed, or that Bruce and Clint set up at least a dozen tranquilizers ready to fire.

He remains calm and hopes Peter can’t hear them. The walls are soundproofed enough for an enhanced teenager’s hearing, but Peter has a long record of surprising Tony without trying.

His heartbeat is there in plain sight for Peter to hear though, so he focuses on keeping it steady. He knows his friends would never do anything to hurt Peter, not in their conscious minds, but they don’t know him like he does and might act on instincts.

His boy is not an animal to be put down. Tony keeps playing the game, but he shifts his left hand behind his knee and sends a subtle thumbs-up gesture towards the mirror. He prays for them to listen to him and stay down.

Tony keeps his eyes glued to the screen and continues rambling. “I had my guys improve the game, and they have continued updates since… I don’t know, 2013? Anyway, that’s hot stuff now, you can customize your avatar, share with friends and everything growing teens are up to these days...”

He can feel the boy leaning close, and it takes a tremendous amount of self-control for Tony to stay still. He taps around the game, fully aware that Peter is hovering not a full two feet above his head and it’s been the closest and the calmest he’s been ever since they brought him back.

It’s a struggle not to pluck him from the wall and into his arms, but Tony pulls through. He tips the screen towards the boy. “We added a few hundred skins to the game, all unlockable by the level, so there are no inside transactions in the game. See that? You can customize yourself any way you want, look.”

He keeps showing off the game’s features like it was any other Tuesday. After a few minutes, he finally dares a quick sideways glance at his boy.

Peter's eyes are open and more lucid than Tony has seen him over the past week. He seems to be hypnotized by the game and doesn’t look away from the screen.

“See that, there are enough options to choose from for the next ten hours. You have Avengers, Disney princesses, Star Wars characters, all the good stuff. You wanna pick something?”

He tips the projection towards Peter and keeps it’s there. For a minute nothing is happening, and Tony’s little avatar starts dancing idly.

Tony’s about to resume playing the game and go off in another meaningless tangent when Peter peels his hand off the wall.

Tony is completely frozen, forcing himself to keep his breathing steady. On the inside, he’s jumping like an excited little kid as he watches Peter extend his bandaged hand over Tony’s head.

His fingers are shaking, hovering unsteadily over the projection for a moment. Then with a few mindful swipes, he goes through the characters until the screen is lit up with images of red and gold Iron Man suit.

Peter stops and selects the character.

Tony’s heart swells ten times its size, and – fuck, his cardiologist is gonna riot. Peter quickly retracts his hand and backs up to his curled position above Tony’s head.

Tony’s eyes prickle with tears. “Always a teacher’s pet, aren’t you, kid?”

Peter doesn’t answer but then again Tony wasn’t expecting him to. Instead, he resumes playing the game, swiping through the blocks like his life depended on it.

He doesn’t know how long they stay like this. The uncomfortable position made his ass hurt good ten levels ago, but he doesn’t dare to move. He extends his legs and the little ants run up and down his skin, as the blood finds its way back to his feet. He doesn’t pay it much attention. He is ready to give up all of his limbs if it meant making Peter just a tad more comfortable.

He plays through another ten levels when Peter shifts again. Swiftly, he drops on the floor by Tony’s side.

Tony’s alarmed at first, thinking his metabolism finally has caught up to him and rendered him unconscious – when Peter curls into a ball next to Tony and stays there. His eyes remain glued to the screen.

His hair is sticking out in every direction and he looks like he just woke up – not like he’s been brought back to life on a surgical table just a few days prior. Tony dares to take a proper look at Peter’s face for the first time in days – he is skinny, too skinny for Tony’s liking, but his face is sort of puffy and so _so_ innocent. He sorts of looks like he does in the mornings, just having rolled into the kitchen in his pajamas. A little sluggish, still tired and not completely lucid, but enough to scowl when Tony calls him out on it.

“How are you always awake before me?” Peter whined one fateful morning. Tony poured him a cup of coffee because he was feeling merciful. “You went to sleep long after me.”

“I sold my soul for good looks and an endless supply of adrenaline. I never sleep.”

“Yeah, in your bed maybe. You fell asleep in the lab yesterday.”

“You would be awake too if you had a super-soldier-sized alarm clock in your bed.”

“Ew, gross, forget I asked.”

Tony wants this Peter back, his lab partner and his baby but the truth is – when it comes to Peter, Tony will take anything he’ll get.

Even if it means filling the silence with meaningless stories until he hits the level three hundred. The colorful blocks are by now imprinted in his brain forever, but with each passing minute, Peter shifts closer to his side so. It’s worth the price.

So, Tony keeps talking.

“…and there was this cook we had at Hamptons – he said the same thing! Can you imagine?” he fumes-pretends while swiping the offending blocks away. “By the way, I hated this cook, and it’s a huge deal. Because I’m usually very lovely with the staff, you know? Had them all wrapped around my finger, even with all the shit I pulled on them daily. Kinda like you.” He wants to elbow Peter’s side. He wants to playfully ruffle his hair, just to feel how soft it is.

But Peter is still covered head to toe in bandages, so he just continues, “But this cook? Mr. Braugher, ew,” he shudders dramatically. “He always hated me. And a lot of people hate me, but this guy was special. He always was crazy vocal about my eating habits like he was paid to do so. I think he was a buddy with my father because no matter what he said to me he never got fired. Or maybe my dad just didn’t give a shit. You know, the peach that he was. Braugher was always like ‘ _you eat like a girl, Anthony’_ and _‘you’ll never grow into your father shoes with a mouth like this_ ’- and look at what he did to me.”

“He cursed me. I am cursed,” he gestured vaguely over his body. “All sixty-five inches of me are cursed because I told him his thanksgiving special smelled like an old sock.”

“Lesson? If a wrinkly old dude tells you to eat his turkey, you eat his turkey, no snarky comments about it. Unless you wanna end up like me.”

The touch on his arm nearly startles him into another dimension. Somehow, he manages not to drop his phone, and it takes all of his will power to keep his gaze focused on the game.

He cannot stop the warmth that is spreading in his chest, as Peter rests his head on his shoulder. He shifts around tentatively as if looking for a comfortable position.

Lucky bastard.

“The point is we’re gonna need to get some food into you soon, kiddie. I am not Braugher, thank god, so I’m not gonna go and tell you what to eat, as long as it has some sweet calories. What are we feeling today? Thai? Pizza? I wouldn’t be so above going for some cheeseburgers myself…”

“msorry.”

It’s so quiet, Tony’s brain doesn’t register it for a full second.

But then Peter wraps his little hands around Tony’s arm and hides his face in his shoulder. “m sorry.”

Tony doesn’t dare to breathe. His fingers tighten around the phone. “…Petey?”

Peter lets out a pained sound and Tony’s gut twists.

He lets the phone fall out of his hand – a mistake, another mistake for the slate, seeing as Peter flinches visibly at the sound. He doesn’t let go of Tony’s arm.

Tony curses himself inwardly, and stops himself, his arms hovering over Peter’s trembling body. “Petey. Can I hold you?”

Peter nods fervently and Tony just notices a stream of tears on the boy’s face.

Tony hates seeing Peter cry, but he can’t help being overjoyed at the sight. Tears he knows. He rocked Peter against his chest on multiple occasions, he knows how to make it better. He will take tears any day over the blank and empty stares.

Gently and so, so slowly he wraps his arms around the boy. When Peter doesn’t seem to object, he pulls his small frame to his chest and holds him tightly.

His lungs are doing a weird thing. He feels like he cannot breathe while simultaneously taking the first breath, the first real one since Peter was taken.

He couldn’t be bothered by this any less because his boy is in his arms again and _he’s crying,_ and Tony is holding him again-

And he’s okay, they’re okay. A little torn around the edges, but so, so okay, Tony knows, as Peter mumbles broken apologies into his shirt.

“Shh, shh, it’s okay. You’re alright, bubba. None of this is your fault,” Tony leans to press a kiss against his boy’s head. “We’re okay, it’s okay. You did nothing wrong, baby.”

Peter shakes his head because of course he does, and Tony is close to tears himself. He hides his face in his boy’s hair, but he’s so happy, as Peter's fists into his shirt pulling him closer.

“I didn’t- I d-didn’t want to-“

“Shh, I know, I know, baby. You’re safe now, I promise, everything will be okay.”

“B-but I-“

Tony puts his palm gently over Peter’s unbruised cheek. He takes in his baby face, wiping the tears away with a careful thumb. “Sweetheart, you did nothing wrong. You were so good, baby. We’ll take care of everything.”

He presses a kiss to Peter’s cheek, to his forehead and the crown of his head. He continues peppering him with kisses as Peter hides in his arms.

“Good to have you back, Petey-pie. I missed you so, so much.”

Peter sobs against his neck, drenching his shirt but Tony couldn’t care less. He continues rubbing his back soothingly and murmurs sweet nothings to his ear. He doesn’t think he can hold Peter closer without injuring either one of them, but he tries anyway.

“’mssedyoutoo” Peter let’s out a jumbled syllable.

Choked up laugh escapes Tony’s throat. For the first time in the torturous weeks, he’s feeling properly hopeful.

Hope isn’t something that comes naturally to him. He needs to be constantly reminded of it by Steve, by Rhodey – especially by Rhodey. He isn’t sure how his friend got through the long three months when Tony went missing, but he has a lot to learn.

Tony knows he wouldn’t survive three months of Peter being gone. Hope had no place in Tony’s head for the past few weeks, but now, as he holds his baby in his arms again, it lights up doubled and strong.

Peter will not only stay safe, he will get better. Tony will make sure of that.

He kisses Peter’s temple tenderly. “I missed you more.”

He continues rocking his baby, keeping Peter safely buried in his arms.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi again! I adore all of you and I'm so grateful to every person reading this. The number of chapters went up again, and with my poor management skills, it will probably change more than a few times.

When Steve and Tony first set foot in Queens public library the last thing they expected was to be flooded with a sea of pre-teen kids.

The place was old and miserably underfunded. It most likely would have stayed this way if Tony managed to stay on Pepper’s good side for few weeks longer – but that would be pretty uncharacteristic of him.

That’s why, after a major lecture about responsibility and few colorful threats, Tony was forced to at least try to get back in Pepper’s good graces. Since no amount of expensive gifts seemed to work on the woman, he reluctantly agreed to run some errands concerning SI’s charity funding.

The idea was to upgrade the library in true Stark fashion – Steve didn’t know the details, but he knew it would involve an excessive number of computers, holograms and whatever the genius mind would come up with. The truth was, he was slightly horrified with the first blueprint of the library.

“I know you will call me old fashioned, but… isn’t the whole point of a library to keep books?”

“How little do you think of me? I would never call you old fashioned, darling. If anything, I would call you ancient,” Tony said with no bite to his tone. “Books are trees and all that jazz. We can’t afford to lose any more trees; besides, it just makes more sense with e-copies – they’re gonna be cheaper, lighter and more accessible.”

Steve thought he was adjusting pretty well to the modern world, but every once in a while, something like that would make him feel painfully aware he belonged to very different times.

Something must have shown on his face as Tony softened immediately. “It’s not like I’m going to burn these books. They will still be there and still in use. There’s just a limited amount of copies, and Queen’s has loads of schools. It would make sense to license as many online textbooks as they can.”

Steve wasn’t going to argue with that and the topic of the renovation was dropped for some time. Once the funding and the project got the green light, Pepper informed Tony that he still had to swing by the library to sign some final papers. Tony spent the whole morning whining (although he would never admit that) why couldn’t she just send him the papers, and saying stuff like _what about this thing called the internet? Did we get magically sent back to the 1940s? Do you need to take out nazis again?_ which wasn’t half as funny as he thought.

Eventually, they arrived at the library fashionably late. Steve let Tony drag him along. After all, he needed to make sure Tony wouldn’t burn any books. Also, it’s been a while since they’ve been on a proper date, and maybe he was quietly hoping they would get a chance to stop by Brooklyn once everything was done.

The idea was foregone as soon as they stepped inside the library, where they were met with a collective screech of pre-teens.

They froze dumbfounded as a nervous-looking counselor darted over them and recited her welcomes and _thank you for agreeing to meet the kids, they have been so excited the whole week_ and _are you ready to start?_

After some confusion and much needed clarification it turned out they had a scheduled meet and great with a local support group. It consisted of thirty or so children of all ages, and which, of course, took place every week in this very library.

“Pepper,” hissed Tony. It sounded like a curse.

It was a clear form of revenge, but also a good PR opportunity – especially in the light of Tony’s last bold comments on live TV. The very reason why Tony was playing docile for Pepper in the first place.

Steve snorted. Tony didn’t look thrilled at all.

“-Who in their right mind would let me anywhere near kids? Pepper has seriously lost it, I’d rather literally fight aliens again –“

“No, you wouldn’t.”

“…Okay, I wouldn’t. But kids? I can’t be let alone with a roomful of kids. What if I break one?”

In the end, they did not in fact, break a child. The kids were excited but remotely behaved and honestly – compared to dealing with blood-thirsty reporters or S.H.I.E.L.D. representatives a roomful of four-graders was _nothing._ They made an improvised speech followed by a small show and tell and the kids were hypnotized. Steve didn’t bring his shield or any part of his fighting gear, but Tony conjured his gauntlet a few times – too an absolute horror of the counselor – and with a couple flashes of repulsors the room was completely sold.

The meet and greet was considerably less flashy than they were used to, considering their lack of preparation, but at the end of the day, kids were just happy to meet Capitan America and Iron Man. They were used to these kinds of stunts – Steve maybe even more than Tony, but Tony doesn’t know about the wrenched PSA’s and Steve will take this secret to his grave if he can help it. It took him ages to convince Peter to be quiet about them.

They posed for pictures and answered innocent questions, like how cold it felt to be stuck under the ice for 70 years. Apparently, the answer _very cold_ was more than satisfying.

The kids seemed happy if a little skittish but somehow also almost – weary. Some of them were thin and some of them wore shoes that definitely seen the better days. Steve reminded himself it was a _support group_ and if that didn’t speak for itself. He learned that a huge part of the group, children between 7 and 15 years old, was composed of kids from foster homes. And because Tony’s hate towards children comes only from internal reasons and not the actual children, it was no surprise to see how their miserable state tugged at billionaire’s heart.

That’s how they found themselves listing down supplies and toy names at the end of the meeting after Tony announced he’ll play Santa a few months early.

The kids lined up neatly. A pleasant warmth spread through Steve as he watched his husband interacting with the kids. Tony has a habit of spitting out quick jokes that often go over the other person’s head. He does that with board members, journalists, and S.H.I.E.L.D members – as a way of insulting them in their face, but not so obviously they’ll notice. He did the same with kids, but this time there was no malice to his voice. They laughed at his every joke and looked up to him like he spoke the truth about the universe.

Before they noticed, the dayroom started to slowly clear out.

“Okay, last in line,” whistled Tony, leaning back on the armchair. The boy, one of the older ones, strutted over obediently. Steve noticed he was hanging back for quite some time.

He was wearing baggy clothes, almost engulfing his small figure. Something most likely passed down by an older brother or an adult.

His hair was sticking out in every direction. It seemed just a bit too long, almost hiding the chocolate brown eyes under the curls. He must have been around ten years old.

“So, what do you say, kid? Now that’s all the other losers are gone,” Tony waved at the hallway. “You can say what you really want. What is it? Booze? World domination?”

Steve nudged his elbow under his ribs. “Could you at least try to be a good influence?”

“Wha- me? Honey, this is why you are here for, with your good American values and whatnot. I’m just playing the Fairy godmother.”

“Time out for the Fairy. Don’t listen to him, kid.” Steve nodded at the boy. “What’s your name?”

The boy was watching them with a vague spooked expression on his face. When he realized he was being addressed he ducked his head down, away from Steve’s gaze.

“I’m Peter P- I’m Peter.”

Steve smiled at the boy. “Nice to meet you, Peter. Is there anything you need for school?”

“Oh – n-no, Mr. Captain, sir. I’m – in eighth grade, sir, I have access to books in the library, so I’m – I’m good, sir.”

Steve frowned and with a corner of his eye he could see Tony’s expression clouding as well. “Eighth grade?”

Peter joined his hands nervously and nodded. “Yes, sir. I’m thirteen.”

Later, much later, Steve learned that Peter at the time was only twelve and three months old. Even later, he learned that was what Peter always did – rounding the number up to make himself look older.

He exchanged looks with his husband. The boy was small, too small for his age. There was a certain fragility about him that made Steve absurdly protective. He made himself a promise to catch his counselor after this, just to ask about his living situation.

Tony seemed to have the same idea. He cleared out his throat. “Okay, what about extracurriculars? Something you do in your spare time? I’ll have to be honest I’m not up to date with the latest toy trends, but if you talk to my Secretary Steve, he will write it all down for you.”

Steve glared at Tony playfully. Friday was recording and listing down all of the kids' wishes and addresses, but Steve also had the unfortunate luck of sitting on a blue cushion chair next to Tony’s armchair, deeming him less than intimidating.

“No, thank- thank you, sir. I just wanted to ask a question… if that’s okay of course. If not, I can totally go away, and it’s not like an important question, I was just curious, but I don’t wanna bother you, or anything, I know you’re both very busy-“

Steve blinked as the kid went from being quiet and a little shy to the total ramble machine in few seconds flat.

Tony held up a hand. “Whoa, kid, zero to hundred much? We’re good. Well, Cap over there might be a little busy trying not to fall out of that cushion but I’m all ears. Shoot.”

Steve ignored the comment about the cushion and watched as the boy gnawed on his lip anxiously.

Then the boy pointed at Tony’s phone. “Is that an AI?”

Steve could tell Tony was not expecting that, but honestly, same. Tony picked up the phone, watching the kid carefully. “Why, of course, it is. All phones have AIs in them, unless you’re living in 2004.”

“No, I don’t mean – this one is different, isn’t it? I don’t mean regular AI, I know it’s a Stark Phone and Stark Phones have their own exclusive software, but this one is- this one is _your AI_ like – like the same you use in your suit.”

Steve watched the kid with raised eyebrows. He wasn’t a hundred percent sure what was and wasn’t public knowledge when it came to their gadgets but was pretty sure none of that was common knowledge among ten-year-olds (thirteen-year-olds?).

Misinterpreting his confused stare (since Steve wasn’t really sure what the kid was talking about anyway), Peter continued “I mean obviously you can find artificial intelligence in every other microwave, but you said I could ask a question so I – It’s just… I’ve never met an AI before. Like a _real_ one, you know what I mean? Not the microwave one.”

Tony watched the kid with narrowed eyes. “And you are a specialist on my tech now, I presume? I didn’t know they held a daycare department at my tower.”

“Tony, don’t be mean-“

“They do marketing department.” Not discouraged like Steve originally assumed, Peter raised his chin. “They put the details on this thing called the internet.”

Just as the words left his mouth the boy seemed to realize what he just said, and his face twisted in alarm. He slapped his hands over his mouth and stared at Tony with huge brown eyes.

Steve couldn’t contain his laughter at the boy’s attitude and almost doubled over the cushion. Tony looked impressed and offended at the same time.

“You have to be me to have my own words thrown at me by a toddler,” Steve laughed and Tony quirked a small smile at the boy. “You own a Stark Phone, Peter?”

Peter shook his head, hands still in place.

Tony nodded. “Good. Make it a list, Friday. Oh, and also say hi to the kid.”

The phone lit up in front of them and a smooth accented voice said “Hello, Peter.”

Peter gaped at the screen. “Uhm – oh, yeah – hi! I’m Peter. Nice to meet you!”

“Thank you. It’s nice to meet you too.”

God, the kid was adorable. Steve continued to smile openly as Tony leaned back in his chair.

“So, mind telling me how you came up with that little guess? Why do you think she’s different than the one in your microwave? What makes her different?”

“I don’t a-actually have a…” Peter stuttered. “I mean. I mean – _duh._ It’s you, sir. Of course, you have a super-advanced AI – I mean besides the regular stuff, because all of your tech is automated, obviously, but there’s a difference between like, kitchenware or phone and like, an actual robot. I mean even most robots today are very simple and sure they look cool when they’re animated but they’re mostly programmed how to act and how to react – wait, let’s just step away from the microwave imagery, o-okay? So like, regular AI mostly uses data analysis which automates an analytical model building-“

Steve wished he could go back to the microwave metaphor again.

“-and if they’re exposed to fresh data, they change their parameters and algorithms without having humans having to reprogram them. But! It’s a super complicated process and some data gets overlooked and lost, but yours has to be super-sophisticated because during a presentation you were saying all kinds of different commands, and Mr. Stark, it was total _nonsense,_ but your AI understood you anyway which must mean it has to have an immense NLP ability and it has to be state-of-the-art, _obviously_ , because you would need a system like that when you’re fighting the bad guys and not an AI that googles you pictures of Serengeti, so – so it has to be _crazy high-tech-“_

Tony stared, hypnotized. Steve bore his eyes into him, trying to telepathically tell him _to shut his trap._

“It’s not like it’s weird, Mr. Stark, or anything, it’s _awesome_ – creating an AI is like _super hard_ but it’s not magic and the baseline for an AI system is that they rely on artificial neural networks so they can learn to recognize patterns, so that means your AI has learned to recognize your jumbled and inconsistent speech pattern which means she’s crazy, _crazy_ advanced, which is obviously super awesome, or it means that she learned to interpret it so well it almost resembles _abstract thinking_ which is absolutely groundbreaking and completely changes how we perceive artificial intelligence in the- in the first place…” Peter looked between them timidly, his enthusiasm vanishing. “I mean – It’s just really – cool.”

Steve wasn’t even pretending to follow that. He watched with fascination as the kid spew a hundred words per second, causing him to relive the memories of his asthma days.

Not containing the smirk that crept onto his face, he looked over at his husband. It wasn’t every day that somebody managed to impress Tony Stark – definitely not some child they met by chance in a falling apart library.

But hell, Tony was impressed. The curve of his mouth suggested he was holding back a smile. Peter was stuck under his examining stare and started to grow anxious. Steve felt bad for the boy. Tony looked ecstatic, like a child who found a new playmate.

“Her name is Friday, but you already know that.” Tony started carefully and stood from his chair. “She runs my suit and my building, and she is as you put it – crazy high-tech.” He admitted proudly, stepping around the table.

He stopped before Peter and took off his glasses. “She’s also in here.”

He put the glasses on Peter’s face, and the boy backed away a step. Then his eyes widened, and he let out an amazed “Woow.”

Tony watched fondly as Peter’s eyes flickered around the room, chasing the invisible patterns. “Mr. Stark this is _amazing!_ Is that what HUD in your suit looks like? It looks like a special spy augmented reality!”

“I know, right? And you haven’t seen yet how it can look through clothes.”

Peter’s eyes widened horrified and he immediately looked down on his person. Tony laughed and plucked the glasses from his face.

“She is pretty great. The older she is the more advanced she gets – she even sasses me back on some days now. Is she gonna develop self-awareness and attack New-York again? I guess we’ll have to wait and see.”

Peter blushed and sputtered, “I- no! It wasn’t what I meant, Mr. Stark- I mean it would be still super awesome, but I thought that was _banned-_ “

“Kiddo, most things that happen in my lab are technically banned.”

Peter’s jaw hung low. “Awesome.”

Delight twinkled brightly in Tony’s eyes. It was a nice sight and something Steve was going to tease him mercilessly about.

Steve decided to cut in before Tony had a chance to do something stupid, like kidnapping a child. “Now that we established that you’re not interested in the world’s domination can we go back to the question? Tell us what you want, kid, and it’s yours.”

Peter hesitated. “Thank you, sir, but- I don’t really need anything.”

Tony gave him the longest-suffering skeptic look. Before he could make a comment about Peter’s clothes or anything that would make the kid even more embarrassed Steve jumped in. “It’s not what about what you need, Peter. We want to give you what _you want._ Everybody else got their chance, it would be unfair to leave you out of this.”

Tony brought his palm to his lips and blew him a kiss from across the room. _You’re a savior,_ it said.

Steve rolled his eyes. _Shut up._

Peter gnawed at his lip. “Are you sure?”

“Hundred percent, kiddo. What is it? An Xbox? Or are you more of a PC guy?” Tony rocked on the heels of his feet. “If it’s a yacht or anything bigger we might need a little more time to organize it, but it’s nothing that can’t be done.”

Steve sighed and got out of his cushion to steal Tony’s place on the armchair.

Peter looked timidly between two of them. “I guess… If it’s not a problem… maybe a battery?”

Tony tilted his head. “Battery? What kind of battery?”

“Any? Any battery.” Peter shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I can just frame the outlet later. But it’s hard to find a working source of energy in the… around. That’s why most of my batteries are dead after a day, so… so you know – a battery would be – would be nice.”

His husband appeared to be malfunctioning. Steve quipped in, “You like building stuff, Peter?”

Peter nodded eagerly, then caught himself and answered with a faux pose, “Yeah, exactly. Stuff.”

“What kinds of stuff?”

“Old computers, it’s – nothing flashy. I-“ he looked at Tony timidly. “I have some pictures of my robot, sir. If – if you wanna see.

Steve smiled fondly. His husband was absolutely _gone._

Steve and Tony would often talk about having kids. Nothing too serious – they both agreed that bringing a child into their lifestyles would be beyond stupid. They could fantasize about expanding their little family – about coming home from the mission to something, to _someone_ – even if just to tuck a pair of small cold feet back under the covers, but that was just it – a dream. Nothing more.

A child was not a toy. It had no return policy because daddy and daddy decided it was too dangerous for them to live in the Tower – the same Tower attacked by aliens and killer robots on regular. And even if the whole galaxy decided to back off and keep New York the safest place on Earth, that still left the problem of their very public personalities. Any kids of theirs would immediately go on the front pages of magazines, Tony knew something about this – and faced enough kidnapping attempts to last a lifetime.

So, the child remained a dream.

Until they met a doe-eyed boy from Queens.

Friday collected addresses and gifts for the kids and distributed them all accordingly. Steve took the time to make sure all of them got personalized cards with all of the Avengers signatures.

One day, when Steve and Tony were making their way back to the Tower, Tony made a sharp turn and parked the car in front of the library. To Steve’s questioning look he pulled up a projection that showed a red dot.

A _complete_ violation of privacy. Steve scolded him for that the whole evening. Tony claimed it would be creepier to jump the kid at his foster home and Steve – Steve honestly couldn’t find words to explain to him that putting a tracker in his new phone _was not better._

That’s how they met with Peter for a second time, hunched over homework in the back of the library. Tony brought a suitcase for the boy and – look, Steve wasn’t a scientist, but he knew it was way more than just some old battery. The suitcase was filled with sets of wires, screwdrivers, pliers, plates, materials and anything a young engineer could dream off. It was the first time they have seen Peter cry.

Eventually, they started to spend more time with the boy. _Often_ turned into _every Saturday._ Once the funding came through the library got closed for renovations – that was the reason they took Peter out for lunch the first time. Or actually, it started as an argument between Steve and Tony about which sandwich place was the best in New York – and the only solution was to go to both places, obviously, and bring Peter along to be the judge.

Peter didn’t take any side. Tony and Steve continued to argue, which took longer than two adults really should. Eventually, Peter led them to Delmar’s, claiming that it was the best place in all of Queens. They had to agree with him.

That’s how they started regularly exploring different restaurants every Saturday. Sometimes they would try discovering new places they’ve never been to before, sometimes settled on Tony’s favorites.

It wasn’t until Pepper, aware of their schedule to a disconcerting level, completely seriously asked, “Are you planning to adopt him?”

The question felt like a whiplash. She wasn’t being patronizing, but she obviously knew _why not._ Besides the obvious facts, as they were absolutely unfit to take care of a child – Peter had his own family.

“He doesn’t think that, does he?” Tony whispered to him during one night.

Steve didn’t answer, because, god, wouldn’t that be just cruel? If Peter is waiting for them to adopt him it would be gut-wrenching to tell him that they are not going to do it.

But Peter never said anything about that. He was a perfect mix of painfully shy and a bucket of attitude, but he never, not once mumbled anything about adoption.

And they would have to tell him no. The Tower was not a healthy environment for a kid. Tony and Steve weren’t equipped for taking care of a kid.

They would have to tell him no.

“We could buy a place in Queens. He wouldn’t have to change schools.”

Steve sighed. “Tony, we talked about this.”

“I know, I know,” Tony waved his hand dismissingly. “I’m just thinking about options. We wouldn’t have to stay there _all_ the time.”

“And do what, leave him alone for the whole week?”

“There must be some decent babysitter left in this city.”

Steve shifted under his husband to look him in the eye. “You were raised by babysitters. By strangers.” He said softly. “Would you really want the same for Peter?”

Tony grimaced and put his head back on Steve’s chest. “I had Jarvis. I was thinking more…”

“If you say Happy, he’ll cosmically hear that you want him to take care of a teenager and retire on spot.”

Tony chuckled. “Fine. Got it, no Father’s Day for us.”

Steve ran a hand through Tony’s hair. “It’s not what I… Look, it’s not that I don’t want to-“

“It’s alright, Stevie. I get that. Just a stupid dream.” Tony intertwined their fingers together. “We’re too busy for parent-teacher conferences anyways. Let’s stop talking about it.”

Except they didn’t stop talking about it. The topic of Peter began to overlap more and more of their conversations.

Tony was absolutely infatuated with the boy. He kept bringing him tools and materials, and the robot soon gained a slightly more advanced baby brother. Sometimes Tony and Peter would go off in some technological tangent, talking about things that Steve didn’t even try to understand. He usually tuned that out – unintentionally, really – settling on watching the pair. Both of them never looked more pure than when they got lost in their scientific little world. Steve would do his best to memorize it and later bring to life in a sketchbook.

Steve himself would lie if he said he wasn’t completely smitten with the boy. He was a shy little thing with a daring character, which clashed constantly. Some days he would keep blushing and keep a respectful distance and others happily geek out in the back of the pizza place booth. Steve had gone through an agonizing phase of being called Mr. America, which Tony was never going to live down.

There was something about the boy, a special brand of goodness that Peter radiated in abundance. It lit up any room he was in and made it hard for Steve to keep his eyes off the boy.

There were many occasions when they would drop Peter off and just sit in a car in a long silence.

“…Maybe?”

Somewhere along the way, _just a stupid dream_ has become _maybe._ And it was terrifying. Surely, they were getting ahead of themselves. They spent time with Peter and looked forward to visiting him, but could they really start to think of him as… theirs?

No. The answer was obviously no. They had no right to endanger a child like that. With Steve and Tony being who they were, it painted a huge red X on whoever was associating with them. They had no right for _maybe._

“We will make it work- would make it work.” corrected himself Steve, one night. “Possibly. If. You know.”

“Yeah. We would.”

Steve watched as Tony fidgeted nervously with a pen. He scrunched his brows thoughtfully, perched at his workstation, without the doubt not paying attention to the actual work.

Steve knew where his attention went because his mind took the same direction. It was far away from the Tower, in a little bedroom in Queens.

“Shame we won’t – you know.” He shrugged. “You would be a great dad.”

Tony leveled him with a gloomy look.

Steve wondered which one of them would be the first to call the other out on their bullshit.

“I would be the best dad there ever was, darling. If we ever decided on – you know.” There was a clear challenge in his voice. “You could go for the best mom title at best or… whatever you were calling your dad a hundred years ago?”

“You mean Papa?”

Tony tsked. “Papa. Like a sick Victorian child, perfect. Would get a little time to get used to, but if – you know – we could make it work.”

“Right. Shame we won’t, though.”

“Yeah, real pity. But what you gonna do?”

“Nothing. We’re not doing anything. Especially, the – you know.”

“Yupp.”

They stared at each other for a long moment. Longer than what two adults, while making a responsible decision should have to.

“…We’re really gonna do it?”

“…Yeah.”

Steve let out something between a breath and a laugh. His lungs felt a lot lighter. He took Tony’s hand. “We will make this work.” He said firmly.

“Yeah. Fuck it,” Tony tossed a pen across the room. “We’re gonna be the best dads on the planet.”

It was a crazy decision and the one that Steve would never in million years grow to regret.

He wants to hold his baby in his arms again. He only knows Peter is a hundred percent safe when he’s curled up on his chest.

Steve watches Tony and Peter through the glass feeling like an outsider.

Bruce’s voice pulls him out of his thoughts. “It would be a good time to put some calories into him.”

“Think he’ll be good with that? No need for fluids?” asks Rhodey.

Bruce waved dismissingly at the glass. Peter ceased crying some time ago, and now was just clinging to Tony’s shirt, quiet except for occasional hiccups. “He’ll do fine. I’ll call the nurse to bring something fresh. The last thing his stomach needs is spoiled food.”

Steve thanks him quietly.

He almost doesn’t notice when he’s handed the tray again.

“I don’t… I don’t think it’s a good idea, Bruce.”

“It is.” Said Bruce confidently.

No. No, it wasn’t. But ever since they found Peter they seemed to be out of good ideas, so maybe this one would be just another to add to the pile.

“Can we move him to his room?” he asks quietly. “Or does he need to be in the med bay again?”

Bruce’s face scrunches and he seems to think about this for a moment. Steve knows this expression – it means he’s about to say something he doesn’t necessarily agree with.

“I think the room would be best. Just give me a minute to settle up some equipment, just in case.”

Steve nods quiet, can’t muster anything else. He just hopes Bruce sees how important it is to him.

He startles a little when Rhodey pats his shoulder. “Glad to have the kid functioning again. If the show’s over will you mind if we get somewhere more comfortable too? Undergrounds not my thing.”

Steve knows what Rhodey is doing. Under his distant words, there’s undeniable affection and it makes the blow painless. He’s giving him an out. A chance to check on his family in some privacy without a group of Avengers ogling from the other side.

It’s the only kind of affection Tony could handle for a long time. Hidden under distant remarks, never too serious, never too emotional. Closed off the same way for strangers as for friends.

Steve wonders sometimes if it’s a mechanism developed through years of dealing with Tony’s antics or the reason why Tony and Rhodey clicked so well in the first place.

Steve is no better at the moment. He wants to tell Rhodey about the endless respect he has for the man, but the words don’t make it out of his throat. Instead, he says, “No problem. Thank you.”

Rhodey smiles briefly. He pats his shoulder for the last time. “Kiss my nephew from me, ‘kay?”

He turns to two spies occupying the corner and hurries them out. Steve keeps his eyes low, boring holes into the tray. The meal is similar to what they tried to give Peter earlier – bland vegetables and mashed potatoes.

Before everybody leaves Steve calls out to Rhodey. “Are you gonna eat that?”

He gestures at a pack of Tweezlers stuffed in his pocket. Rhodey has a knowing look in his eye as he sets the pack on the tray.

“Find a moment to catch up on some pizza too. You look like shit.”

Steve thanks him and then he’s gone. Leaving him in the empty room.

He sighs heavily, looking back at the glass. Just him, his husband and his child who hates him.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again! Did I mention I adore all of you? Just to be sure, I adore every and each one of you and I'll tell you that until I bore you to death. Just a late disclaimer - as if it wasn't obvious before, english is not my first language. If you find a batshit crazy sentence that doesn't make any sense I encourage you to call me out on it ₚₗₑₐₛₑ

Despite his original fears, his world doesn’t fall apart upon entering.

Tony raises his head and sends him a tired, but full of pride smile. He looks like he does when he spends three days straight in the lab at the verge of the newest scientific breakthrough – weary and half-mad, but extremely pleased with himself.

 _Told you I got it_ , says the twinkle in his eye.

Steve is _weak_ for both of them. Peter looks so small, tucked under Tony’s arm. He seems almost asleep and Steve would rather take him to bed before anything else, but he will sooner fight Hulk than let Bruce pierce his skin with needles again.

He crouches down before his family. Peter tenses against Tony.

“Hey, easy, Bambi,” hushes Tony. “It’s alright. Just your Pops with some dinner.”

Peter buries his face against Tony’s shoulder. Steve pretends his heart doesn’t break to million pieces.

He looks at Tony miserably and he makes a small gesture with his hand. _Don’t worry._

Tony brushes the brown curls out of Peter’s eyes. “Your Pops and I missed you lots. How about you say hi to him?”

Peter tightens his arms around Tony. Steve hopes it doesn’t hurt.

One bright brown eye timidly peaks out from Tony’s embrace. “Hi.”

Steve is breathless. “Hi, baby.”

Peter goes back to hiding in Tony’s arms like a startled turtle. Tony hums soothingly.

Steve cannot look away. The walls might be closing around him, he doesn’t know – the only thing he knows is the child in Tony’s arms and the way he recoiled at the sound of his voice.

It’s clear to him Peter’s not gonna be falling into his arms any time soon. Steve sways a little in his position.

Tony looks torn. He would never admit that but his heart is big enough to break for both of them. Right now his hand flexes as if he can’t decide between reaching to his husband or his child.

Steve gives a minuscule shake of his head. He doesn’t need comfort. Not when it meant taking it away from Peter.

Tony’s eyes held his for a long minute, before turning back to Peter. “We should probably work on getting some food into you, sunshine. What did Bruce say?”

It takes a second for Steve to realize he’s being addressed. He hesitates, watching Peter carefully. He keeps his voice quiet and light. “We can go to the penthouse in a few minutes. Bruce is there fixing up some things.”

“It needs some proper dusting, huh?” It’s not what Steve meant. It’s not what Tony means either. Peter wasn’t gone long enough for his room to get properly dusty (and wasn’t that an insane thought? To Steve, it felt like a lifetime and then some).

But Peter doesn’t need to hear about any more medical equipment installed in his room. If it’s even what Bruce is installing – if they go to Peter’s room to find any more restraints Steve will lose it.

His sheets will need changing though. Steve’s mind went cataloging through their collection in an overwhelming urge to be useful. Peter twisted his little fists into Tony’s shirt, as Tony soothed him with a gentle kiss to the temple.

Iron Man patterned sheets it is. Without parallel.

“We’ll be home soon, Petey, I promise,” whispers Tony. “We just really need you to eat something, buddy, anything. Think you can do that for us?”

Steve and Tony exchanged tired looks. There is an unspoken understanding in the air. The last thing they want is to feed Peter on the floor like a dog, but they are scared that with one wrong move, Peter will run away – or bolt back onto the ceiling.

Tony hums and noses Peter’s hair. “I know hospital food is a form of divine punishment, but I can hear your stomach rumbling with my normal non-enhanced ears. Do you think you can try eating something?”

Peter watches the tray for a long minute. His eyes are glassy like he’s not really seeing it and Steve is afraid to know where his mind went.

He looks so fragile like that. No child should look at food and wonder if it’s really there. Steve is half-convinced to grab his shield and storm out of the tower, if only to scream at the skies because _how dare_ they hurt his kid like that – when Peter extends his little hand, stealing all of his attention.

Peter ignored the meal completely in favor of the pack of Twizzlers. He fiddles with the package for a minute but eventually manages to get a hold of the red candy.

Steve deflates with relief. Eating was good. Eating meant progress.

Tony smiles proudly and kisses Peter’s temple.

They watch Peter gnaw on the candy for a few long minutes. His hands are shaking and Steve’s heart squeezes painfully. He can’t keep the image of his wounded wrists out of his mind.

He hopes his stomach is not going to hurt. Not too much, at least. The candy wasn’t the best option on the tray but it was sugar Peter desperately needed.

When it becomes obvious he is not going to eat anything else, Tony nudges him gently. “Good job, bud. I think we’re up for that trip upstairs now, what do you say?”

Peter mumbles something intelligible against Tony’s shoulder.

Tony strokes his hair. “You can rest now, buddy, it’s alright. We got you. I’ll make sure Papa Steve will not charge you for the piggyback ride.”

“No.”

Just like that Steve is under ice again.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, baby-“ Tony throws Steve a helpless look. “It will just be a few minutes. You’re gonna be in your own bed in a moment.”

Peter’s breathing quickens disconcertingly. Steve doesn’t dare to breathe.

“Come on, Petey-“

“…walk.”

Tony moves his hand through Peter’s curls, with a forming frown. “It wouldn’t be wise, bambino. Your legs still need a break, you know? Pops’ not gonna mind.”

Peter shakes his head, gaze stuck on the ground. His breathing becomes heavier. “Wanna walk.”

Tony rubs his back soothingly and looks up helplessly.

Steve’s eyes prickle with tears. “I’ll go-“ he clears his throat. “I’ll go change your sheets.”

Tony looks as heartbroken as Steve feels. Peter gasps for air and pulls on his hair with frustration. The beginning of an upcoming panic attack.

Steve slips out of the room before he can break down in front of Peter. He goes straight for the elevator, not sparing a glance at a two-way mirror.

He goes back to himself after some time, and only when Friday reminds him to breathe he realizes he hit the floor.

He locks himself away at the gym after that. He massacres the training dummies, imagining they are the monsters who took Peter away.

When they broke into the base most of the tech was wiped out and destroyed and the agents long dead. There were no cameras inside the facility and no records of Peter’s torture, but the tools and machines were left untouched, letting them piece together what happened.

When they first found Hydra’s trail, Steve’s mind was flooded with horrifying images of the next Winter Soldier. He spiraled imagining Peter’s face hidden underneath a black mask, his eyes dead, as he was hunting them down – so indescribably _hurt._

Steve is a leader. He is supposed to be the strong one – optimistic one, with a pep talk ready at his lips – he was supposed to tell his team that not everything has been lost, they will get Peter back. They got Bucky back – even after all the shit they’ve been through _he got Bucky back-_

“We will get him back,” Bucky said firmly instead. Time and time again. To Steve, it felt like a lifeline.

Bucky endured Hydra’s horrors for longer than anybody deserved ( _nobody_ deserved it, but life felt less and less fair with each day Peter was gone, so maybe it made some twisted sense). He came back from something people did not go back from.

Not all days were great. But in the evenings Bucky eats pizza with them on the couch. Bucky watches Disney movies with Peter and they make fun of Steve’s singing. Bucky is smiling and he is healing, and it was the only thing that kept Steve from spiraling further.

If Bucky healed, then Peter would too. He kept telling himself that all they needed was finding Peter alive and they will work with what they get. He stands by that promise.

He just didn’t expect it to hurt this much.

He rips the last dummy off its hinges, and it goes flying across the gym.

“Good thing you’ve got a rich boyfriend,” remarks Natasha behind his back. “No respect for the common equipment, I see.”

He turns to see her sitting on the stairs. She’s not in her training outfit. “Yeah, well. I don’t think he’ll notice.”

Natasha looks at him thoughtfully. She reminds him of a cat that used to find its way onto his family house doorstep. “You need to find yourself a rich husband, Natasha. Somebody used to tell me that.”

Steve wipes sweaty hands on his trousers. How long has he been here? “Do you think finding a rich brother in law is close enough?”

“For them, no. Me, yes.”

“Good. I don’t like to share.”

Natasha smiles pleasantly and slides of the stairs, just as catlike.

She sobers up before Steve. “We’ve got something.”

There are no dummies for him left to destroy. Maybe he will just put his fists through the wall. “What?”

“There were twelve people on the site, including four scientists. We originally thought all of them were Hydra agents, no names, no faces anywhere. They all died from the pill – except two of them.”

Steve frowns. “No. No, they were all poisoned. We saw.” They killed themselves before they could capture them. Steve knew how the effects of the cyanide capsule worked too well.

“Two of them were poisoned before we arrived. And there was no trace of the pill in their bodies.”

“You think it means something?” Steve asked genuinely. “They have no regard for human life. They kill each other all the time for no reason.”

“Perhaps,” admits Natasha. “That, or they weren’t part of Hydra in the first place.”

“You think you can find them?”

“There’s a lead. We think one of them was connected to the account we found in Mexico. We’re leaving at midnight.”

“Oh. That’s good.”

“Just me and Clint. Sam thinks he’s going, but I told him we leave in the morning. Unless he finds out before that he’ll stay with Bucky.”

“Yeah. Yeah, good idea.” Steve himself wasn’t too eager to throw Bucky into Hydra-related missions. Since Sam could put up a good fight, broken arm or not, he supposed Natasha was doing it primarily for Bucky’s benefit. Or Steve’s. “Thank you.”

Natasha’s gaze is surprisingly gentle. “You should go with us.”

He should. He might not be a trained spy, but he’s had his share of sleuthing. Not to mention it didn’t hurt to have him on the field. It would be something to do besides punching lifeless training dummies and pouring his frustration into the world.

Maybe they would find the actual monsters, which Steve would love to get a hold of. Something that will fight back, except he is not gonna let them – they lost that chance when they decided to hurt Peter.

He thinks of the teenager upstairs. “No,” he says finally. “I need to stay.”

“Why?”

 _Because I can’t just leave,_ is the simplest answer. But not the one she is looking for.

He just got his kid back. He’s slightly skewed (and _hurt)_ but he’s here. In his room, preferably with his husband, because Steve can’t take the thought of Peter being alone.

Peter can’t even look at him. Trauma does weird things to people, Steve tries to tell himself. Steve brought Peter down at the base when Peter was so scared and awaiting another fresh horror. He has every right to be scared of him (it doesn’t hurt any less).

He thinks of warm brown eyes. His quiet, barely-there _hi._ He thinks of the way he picked the red candy and gnawed on it like a baby squirrel.

He thinks of Bucky’s smiles and clear of horrors movie nights. He got his Bucky back.

“I can’t leave Peter. I’m sorry.”

Natasha tilts her head. “Then what are you doing here?”

“Here?”

“What are you doing at the gym? Why are you here, destroying equipment and not with your son?”

“I- you know why.”

“Enlighten me,” she shoots skeptic look around the gym and the fallen dummies. “You’re not here for Peter, you’re on the other side of the massive building. You’ve already left him.”

“What- I’m trying to- I’m trying to give him space.”

“He doesn’t want space. He wants his dad.”

Steve runs a hand through his hair. “Yeah. He’s with Tony.”

“You’re such an idiot, Rogers.”

He is, but what is he supposed to do with that? Peter already hates him, and Tony will too, soon enough, if he’s got an ounce of common sense, because Steve Rogers is a fucking failure who can’t keep his family safe. He has been created to fight and nothing else. There’s a ring on his finger because his husband is insane, and not because he’s someone worth starting a family with.

He used to be scared that one day Tony will realize that Steve is nothing but a weapon and just because he can _fight_ doesn’t mean he can _keep them safe._ That he will pack his bags and take Peter with him, hide him somewhere Steve will never find them.

But maybe this day has already come. No reasonable man would keep somebody like him around his child, especially a child that he has already hurt.

Natasha smacks him upside the head. He startles sluggishly.

He blinks slowly. “Ow?”

She glowers at him, holding a foam bat. She must have snatched it from the weapons table, and Steve is really glad she didn’t go for the metal one. “Get out of your head. Whatever you’re thinking it’s a load of bullshit, I can tell by your face.”

Steve sighs. “I wanna make him feel safe, Tasha, I’m just… not the right person for the job right now. I don’t want to pressure him. He’s already been through a lot.”

“Exactly. He’s been gone for a long time,” says Natasha as if he needed a reminder. “Do you think after all this time, and after all the time he spent in that cell, alone – do you think he’s happy that you’re not there?

“He’s with Tony.”

“Okay,” she says carefully as if she was talking to someone slow. “Do you think when he asks Tony _where is his other dad_ and Tony says _I don’t know_ , do you think he’s happy?” 

“He doesn’t – He doesn’t ask for me.”

“You wouldn’t know that.”

Okay, that hurt. But Natasha wouldn’t be herself if she was pulling her punches.

He drags his hand through his hair. “Why do I have a feeling you don’t even want me to go on that mission?”

“It’s not about what I want.” Natasha handles him the bat. “I’m leaving in an hour.”

“An hour? I thought you said midnight?”

Natasha shoots him an unamused look. Surely, it couldn’t be-

“Take a shower, Captain.”

It’s a little past 1 am when Tony finds him in the kitchen, huddled over a cutting board and a boiling pot.

“As far as midnight snacks go, this seems a little elaborate.”

Steve gives a one-armed shrug and continues cutting up the vegetables. “I was thinking pancakes for breakfast, but it might be a little too early for Peter’s stomach. If he keeps down the soup, we can start with something better later.”

Why is he even worrying about these things. What cruel universe decided to put his kid through hell like that.

It’s just a question of when Tony sees him for what he is. Not able to face their son, hiding in kitchen coward.

Tony wraps his arms around him. “You’re a savior.” He murmurs into his shoulder. “You’re a goddamned hero, you’re a _superhero_ and I don’t know what I would do without you.”

Steve’s stomach twists painfully. “It’s really not that much.” _I’m really not that much._

“What was that? _Thanks, babe, you’re pretty cool yourself and I love you?”_ Tony pinches his side. “Huh?”

Steve squirms. He is not ticklish. Why did nobody take this into account while creating serum? He can’t be ticklish, it gives way too much power to Tony, as he digs his fingers into Steve’s sides.

“Yes! That’s what I said,” he yelps, catching Tony’s hands. “Check your hearing. I love you.”

“You better.” Tony plants himself against his back. “It would make this marriage thing super awkward if you didn’t.”

Steve smiles despite himself. His mood doesn’t lighten drastically, but it shifts – like many times in Steve’s life, it’s easier with Tony within his reach.

He prepares vegetables, purposefully taking his time. He’s glad to have something to do with his hands. Tony watches over his shoulder and for a long moment, they’re just here. It’s easy to pretend they’re preparing dinner like it was any other Tuesday.

What sucks is that not all easy things are beneficial in the long run. He gnaws over the question in his head, before he breaks.

“How is he?”

“Better.” Tony doesn’t hesitate. “He slept through the day. I made him a smoothie around dinner, and he drank a little bit. He’s been knocked out ever since.”

Steve nods, glad and worried at the same time. It was good that Peter could finally catch some rest, and more importantly some food, but it also meant Tony hasn’t had a proper meal in at least two days now.

He sighs, reluctantly untangling himself of Tony to pour the ingredients into the pot. Once that is done, he rummages through the kitchen in search for bread and cheese.

Tony took a seat at the island. “Bruce changed his bandages, and everything seems ok. Nothing infected. Healing as fast as a radioactive spider-kid can.”

The bruises on his arms are already gone. Steve swallows. “That’s good.”

“Yeah. He’ll be on his feet and kicking in no time. Which reminds me – how are you?”

He doesn’t sound angry. The opposite, actually, but Steve’s still tenses. “I’m sorry. I got carried away.”

“I know,” says Tony softly. Friday must have told him.

Steve keeps his focus on the sandwiches like he was performing surgery. He cuts off the edges of the bread. He hates wasting food and his mom would kill him if she saw this, but Tony has eating habits of a five-year-old. He thinks of it as a necessary evil.

“I didn’t know where else to go. I just needed to blow off some steam.” God, he sounds like a jerk. “I mean – I didn’t know what else…” he shrugs finishing the sandwiches. Bad idea – now he doesn’t know what to do with his hands.

“It’s alright. I know it’s hard.”

“No, it’s – it’s not. Hard. It’s hard for Peter. For you, I – I got the easiest part.”

“That’s not true,” Tony disagrees instantly. “Don’t say stuff like that. Self-deprecation is my thing.”

“You took care of Peter. I spent the whole day at the other side of the building.” If not for Natasha, he would most likely still be there. “I don’t qualify as a Father of the Year candidate. Especially after everything-”

“I told you to stop stealing my thing.” Tony frowns hopping off the chair. “One more word and we’re gonna have a problem, Mr. America.”

He’s not in the mood. “Tony…”

“Nuh-uh. It’s too late for arguments. I’m about to monologue, son,” he picks up a wooden spoon and shoves it into Steve’s face. “See that? I don’t think I’ve ever touched that thing in my life. Which means without you, me and Peter are as good as dead. But we are not – because you take care of us, and think about stuff, like what to give our son to eat so his stomach doesn’t hurt, and you cook soup in the middle of the night, and honestly Stevie, you’re too good to be true sometimes, but you are insulting my husband right now, and I can’t tolerate this kind of talk.”

He’s threatening him with a spoon and looks too much like Natasha with a foam bat.

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. And I have a good intel saying that your husband is sorry too.”

“One more sorry and I’ll call in Peter to do you one better. You both apologize far too much.” He sighs, putting the spoon away. “I am sorry. That I made you think you can’t be around Peter.”

“You didn’t do anything. I know – I know it’s not his fault. It’s not his fault. I could never be mad at him for that.” He’s not sure he’s physically capable of getting mad at Peter for anything. Least of all something he doesn’t have control over. “I just- I don’t know. I understand. I just want to give him some space.”

Tony smiles sadly. He reaches out and fiddles with a hem of Steve’s shirt. “You know how he gets after nightmares? Sometimes he’s all shaky and cuddly, and sometimes he gets… withdrawn.” His other hand travels to cup his cheek. “I promise you, love, it’s just that. Just another nightmare.”

Steve leans into the touch. “He’s got enough of them. It’s not fair.”

“Yeah,” Tony runs a thumb over his jaw. “But it will even out. He’s gonna have the best life. We will make sure of that.”

Tony kisses him, as if it was meant to seal the deal. Steve hopes it does, hopes it’s enough to whatever entity that is listening to them. He wraps his arms around Tony and brings him closer, pulling them flush to each other.

It’s so sweet some of Steve’s anxieties melt away. The kiss reminds him of the one Tony gave him that time in the cell, when they were stuck on the other side of the glass. Steve cannot understand how something so innocent lights him up so brightly from the inside.

Tony pulls away too quickly. “As much as I’d love to keep this going…”

Steve is operating on less than five hours of sleep for the last week, so it takes him a moment to understand that something is burning.

He turns and quickly turns off the toaster, and thankfully, the sandwiches are only mildly burned.

“What’s that?”

“Grilled cheese. Your less elaborate midnight snack.”

Tony’s eyes go wide. “For me?”

Steve scoops the sandwiches on the plate. “I don’t think you could eat four sandwiches if you tried, but if you’re up for a challenge-“

“Ha! As if you don’t know me at all, darling. I would eat a horse, if it was a challenge.”

The thing is, Steve does know Tony, that’s why he divides the sandwiches evenly. Tony is going to eat only one, maybe a half of the other if he’s feeling really hungry and give the other half to Steve.

“I’m feel like I’m being set up,” confesses Tony midbite. “You’re feeding me all this stuff in the middle of the night, then you’re gonna go and leave me for a younger, skinnier version.”

Steve wouldn’t leave Tony, even if it was for a clone. “I won’t. It would make the whole marriage thing super awkward.”

Tony chuckles and everything feels normal for a change.

Tony eventually persuades him to go to sleep. Their their roles got oddly reversed, maybe he really is tired. Steve tells him to go first and he’ll join him after putting the soup inside the fridge.

He doesn’t join him. Not because the soup or the fridge present any imminent problem, but because in order to get to their room, he needs to pass Peter’s room first.

For the longest time, he just stares at the doors blankly. He can’t enter, he doesn’t want to enter. It would mean a complete violation of Peter’s privacy, and god, does Peter deserve all that and more.

He can’t bring himself to walk away either. After a few agonizing moments of standing awkwardly in the dark, he lowers himself to sit next to the door.

He leans on the wall feeling stupid. The Tower is as secure as it could be, yet the strange feeling of uneasiness couldn’t seem to leave him alone.

He thinks he dozed off at some point, but it doesn’t really matter. He always was a light sleeper. He could be knocked out cold and he would still hear the light footsteps approaching Peter’s room.

He hates that his mind goes for the worst scenario first. He hates that his body tenses ready for a fight. Somebody broke into the Tower, Friday is disabled and every Avenger dead. Now they’re coming for Peter and Steve will die before he lets that happen.

He must be really tired, as he doesn’t recognize his husband’s face for a full second.

“Tony?”

“Shh,” Tony brings a finger to his lips. With the other hand, he gestures pointedly to his ear and back to the teenager’s room.

Steve understands and drags his hand across his tired face. God, what time is it? It feels like he’s been sitting out there for hours.

It doesn’t matter, Steve thinks bitterly. Time slowed down after that first time Peter’s phone went to voicemail. Then the second and then the third, until time stopped being real.

As long as Peter will look at him with fear in his eyes, Steve’s time will never get back to normal.

Tony settles next to him and pushes a tablet on his lap.

The text on the screen says _So… You come here often?_

Steve huffs and pushes the tablet back to his husband. Tony uses the motion to duck under his arm and settle himself against his side.

Steve has a hard time denying Tony what he wants so he pulls him into a one-armed hug. Tony types away in the tablet and shoves it under his nose. _Yeah, me too._

Steve takes the tablet and types _You should go to sleep._

Tony quickly answers. _I slept for a few hours with Pete during the day._

Steve wants to ask how long, if he slept okay, if Peter slept okay or if they faced a completely fresh wave of nightmares. Something more horrid than their usual nighttime rendezvous.

But it feels like too much work and Steve already knows the answer. He presses a lingering kiss to Tony’s temple. Then another and another one and Tony hums under his breath. He rests his head on Steve’s shoulder.

_Where have you gone now?_

Guilt squeezes Steve’s stomach again, but then again when didn’t it?

_My head._

Steve can _feel_ Tony rolling his eyes.

_We talked about this. Going inside your head requires a visa. From me. No unplanned trips without my knowledge._

How is he typing that fast?

 _Sorry. Don’t deport me,_ he types much slower.

_I’ll think about it._

Tony sits up and kisses Steve slowly. It’s the same kiss he gave him in the kitchen – the same one he gave him that day when he opened Peter’s restraints. It’s unfamiliar to Steve, it feels different than all the other kisses Tony gives him.

It’s gentle, not too deep but not shy either – and it says something that Steve cannot make out. He’s usually good at reading Tony, but then again he often doesn’t need too. His husband is a very demanding man, spoiled rotten, and when he wants something he makes it very well known. Steve doesn’t know what he wants from him now, but he doesn’t mind.

This softness isn’t new but is… different, somehow. It makes Steve pliant, it makes him want to never let go of Tony if it meant Tony would keep kissing him like that.

It lingers all over his body even after they pull away. Steve runs a thumb over his jaw. Tony is busy threading fingers through his hair and the tablet lays forgotten on his lap.

There are dark rings under Tony’s eyes and his expression still holds a shadow of exhaustion, but he looks more content than he saw him in weeks. Steve wonders if he would look like that too if he could hold Peter, just for a few minutes.

Steve takes the tablet but hesitates before typing. He doesn’t know what to say. _I miss him_ – but Tony already knows that. He wants Peter happy. He wants Peter safe. He – he wants _Peter_.

Tony takes the tablet out of his hands gently. He types away and after a minute, multiple recordings from different cameras show up on the screen.

The footage shows empty rooms. Some are darkened, some completely dark, visible only through night cameras.

Tony swipes to another footage. It shows the outside of the Tower, the entrance and the grounds. All empty.

Another swipe shows security guards huddled in their booth watching Netflix. Another shows the other half of the security patrolling the grounds.

Tony settles against his chest and shifts until he’s in a comfortable position. Steve wraps his arms around him, watching the tablet over his shoulder.

They keep swiping through the footage like an old family album. There are thousands of cameras in the Tower and Tony unquestionably has access to every single one of them. If something was wrong Friday would be first to alert them, but it makes him feel better, somehow. Making sure that there is nobody suspicious on the premises, because Steve will not fall asleep until he knows that their kid is completely and a hundred percent safe.

They watch the empty halls, floor by floor. Steve thinks it should be menacing, but it’s the opposite – the place looks almost peaceful.

It’s peaceful but far from empty. Security guards are scattered over the premises, playing fetch with their dogs. Steve wonders how he has never noticed the big German Shepherds that apparently are part of their security. Peter is going to love them.

The labs are as lit up as ever and obviously still in use. They watch for a few minutes a small, frustrated group of engineers, fussing over a project. They look like they’re this close to pulling all the hair out of their heads and Tony doesn’t conceal his amusement. Steve feels bad that their boss is watching them without their knowledge and swipes to the next camera.

They sit like that for a long time, the footage flowing before their eyes. Steve is dozing off again when Tony pinches his hand, snapping his attention back to the footage.

Tony zoomed in, and when Steve’s eyes focus, he sees two men on one of the workstations caught in a very compromising position. His tired brain takes a second to register it.

He swipes the footage away, dropping his forehead on his husband’s shoulder. “Tonyy,” he hisses.

Tony laughs. He twists in his hold to plant a kiss on Steve’s flustered face.

That’s when Steve hears a noise and puts his hand over Tony’s mouth. Tony stills in his lap.

They don’t breathe for the next few seconds, until they hear an unmistakable sound of shuffling in the other room.

Steve is torn between the urge to check it out and his understandable fear of barging into Peter’s room.

Tony brings up the footage from the inside.

Steve’s shoulders sag with relief. There is no attacker inside. Crumpled sheets found their way onto the floor, but Peter usually manages to do that even on his best nights. His restless legs always get rid off the sheets like they personally offended him.

Tonight, his legs seemed to lead him all the way to the door. He’s sitting on the floor, curled in on himself under a blanket, back supported on the wall.

Steve’s heart does a somersault as he realizes the only thing separating them and their kid is a thin wall. He turns to Tony questioningly.

Tony is watching the screen with a fond expression, reserved only for Peter. For Peter and for videos of small kittens Peter is showing them from time to time.

Steve can’t force himself to look away from the wall, as if it was the most fascinating thing in the world. Like it would suddenly disappear, and he needed to be prepared for an armful of his kid falling from the other side.

This moment doesn’t come, but Peter on the footage doesn’t disappear either. He’s just sitting there, hidden under a blanket.

He brings up what he remembers from his time as a soldier and lifts his hand to the wall. He taps on it quietly, just with the pad of his finger. He knows anything else will sound to Peter’s ears like a gunshot.

He hopes his heartbeat isn’t too loud.

Tony sniffs next to him, but when Steve looks up at him there’s a smile on his face. Of course the bastard knows the Morse Code. He and Peter are too smart for anything less.

A minute passes and nothing happens, but that’s okay. It wasn’t a question. Steve doesn’t expect an answer.

Tony takes his hands and brings to his lips. He presses a kiss to his knuckles and just as he does a quiet knocking sounds from behind the wall.

It’s the same sequence Steve tapped earlier, repeated just a tad louder. To Steve it sounds like music.

_(L-O-V-E-Y-O-U)_

He thinks he might be crying as Tony pulls him into his arms and holds tightly to his chest. He doesn’t speak, but his hand finds its way to Steve’s hair, brushes it out of his eyes and it speaks louder than any of them could in the quiet of the hall.

Soon, Steve isn’t thinking about anything – except of his husband pressing kisses to the crown of his head, and the teenager hidden behind the wall.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no excuse. All of you lovely beings are too good to me. Reading your comments is what gets me through the day, thank you ALL so much!

For the first time in his life Steve sleeps in.

He wakes up after 11 am – technically. Whatever happened to his exhausted body, he cannot call waking up, not with a clear conscience. All he knows is that everything hurts, and his head detached itself from his shoulders and rolled into another dimension.

Whatever appeal Tony sees in sleeping in, Steve cannot see it. He usually wakes up before 5 am feeling far less exhausted.

He finds himself unable to start the day. Bitterly he thinks that he doesn’t have anywhere to go anyway, so he stays hidden in their room. Tony isn’t anywhere in sight, which hopefully means he is with Peter. He is less likely to skip breakfast when Peter is around.

He rolls out of the bed around noon, somehow feeling worse than the night before.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” Bucky calls out from the living area.

Okay. Steve is really out of it. He stares blankly ahead, taking a minute to realize there are two Avengers sprawled on the couches.

Sam cranes his neck to glance at him. “Not cool, soldier. Some of us started to worry you were gonna wake up in seventy years or something.”

“Yes. Sam was very worried.”

Steve rubs his eyes tiredly. “Well. It felt like that. Maybe longer.”

“Yeah, you definitely look it.” Sam snatched the remote from Bucky’s grasp. “More importantly – now that you’re here you can say you’re voting for _Love is Blind_ , so we can for once watch something other than _The Bachelor.”_

“It’s cute how you think he would choose _Love is Blind_ over the superior classic that is _The Bachelor.”_

“Okay, Barnes, that show has literally twenty seasons and I’m still waiting for something interesting to happen-“

“Excuse me? A woman came out dressed as a sloth last episode, what happens in _Love Island?_ They’re locked in a box?”

“Yes, and it teaches a lesson that appearance doesn’t matter because the true love comes from within – you just don’t get the message.”

“You know what doesn’t matter? Your opinion because Steve agrees with me-“ Bucky turns to him abruptly. “Right, Steve?”

Steve waits for his brain to catch up. “Uhm. I’d rather you two to left me out of this. I didn’t watch either of the shows.”

The offended looks he gets are too much to deal with this early in the morning. Or noon. Whatever.

Sam huffs. “Uncultured. Raised by the wolves.”

“Just like the directors of _Love Island.”_

“Listen here, you little shit-“

“ _The Bachelor,_ ” cuts in Steve. “ _The Bachelor_ sounds good. I wanna see the sloth.”

Sam groans and Bucky throws him a triumphant smile. Something warm blooms inside Steve’s chest. He wonders how long it will take for Peter to ramble about TV shows again.

He turns to the coffee maker as Sam complains from the couch. “Favoritism. Unbelievable. That would never stand in _Love Island_ , you know?”

Steve dives headfirst into his coffee. “How’s your arm?”

Sam waves it above the back of the couch. It’s wrapped in a white cast. “Still attached to the rest of me.”

He meant to ask earlier but he didn’t sleep for a week. Turns out he is a crappy friend on top of being a crappy father. Who would have thought.

He wonders if he should add _crappy husband_ to this list. He misses Tony. Which is ridiculous since he held him in his arms just a few hours earlier. But Tony woke up in the morning to take care of their son, and Steve stayed in bed, wallowing in his own insecurities.

Tony always manages to make him feel good about himself. No matter how hard he tries to keep his heart hidden, he radiates an absurd amount of love that Steve absorbs selfishly.

But Tony didn’t wake him. Come to think of it, Steve doesn’t remember if he went with him to bed at all. Maybe he stayed with Peter. God, what if Peter had a nightmare?

What a stupid question, of course he did. It would be a miracle if Peter got one night of peaceful sleep in the next year. And Steve left Tony to deal with him on his own.

Yeah. Definitely adding crappy husband to this list.

“You’re not even watching,” Bucky perches over the backrest. “Alex is gonna come out next.”

He blinks. “Alex?”

“The sloth girl.”

“Ah.”

There’s a knowing look in Bucky’s eyes. It makes sense, as Bucky is an expert in Steve’s moods every bit that Tony is. Steve wouldn’t be surprised if both of them had some kind of alarm installed in their brains when it comes to bringing him out of his head.

He heats up some pizza leftovers and makes his way to the couch. Sam and Bucky immediately steal a piece each.

“I’m sorry about your arm.” He knows Sam doesn’t hold a grudge, but he still feels like he needs to say it.

“Accidents happen, man.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that I’m sorry. It was my fault. I froze.”

Sam waves his good hand. “Nah, you’ve got it all wrong. It was already cracked from the last mission. A butterfly could have broken it. I was just hiding it so well because I’m a badass like that.”

“Keep that in mind next time you stab your toe.” Bucky snorts. “He told Peter the same thing.”

Steve whips his head around. “Peter? You talked to Peter? When?”

Bucky grimaces in an apologizing smile. “Around hour ago. He looks better.”

“Yeah, the kid will be prancing walls in no time. I think Bruce went to check out his bandages.”

“How is he? Did he talk?”

“He seems okay.” Bucky exchanges a look with Sam. “We did most of the talking. He ate some soup and a couple of grapes.”

“He apologized too much, which he gets from you, the usual.” Sam shrugs and extends his arm, showing off his cast. “What he doesn’t get from you are the art skills. That boy can’t draw a straight line.”

The inside of the cast holds a few black signatures. He can make out a _Metal Man_ in Tony’s neat handwriting, a doodle of a dick furiously crossed over, which unquestionably belonged to Bucky, and a smudge of a word starting with an _S-_ but it dissolved into an unreadable mess.

Next to it, he can make out shaky lines, stretching out in every direction. It takes him a long minute to make out a drawing of a spider.

Steve is a mix of conflicted emotions. On the one hand, he’s happy to hear that Peter is, well – okay. That he feels comfortable enough to eat breakfast in the living room, with Sam and Bucky watching. That he feels safe enough to get close to Sam and draw a doodle on his cast – Steve wants all of that. He wants nothing more than for Peter to feel safe and loved.

But he can’t shake off the unbearable _jealousy_ that weighs down his whole body. He struggles to swallow the bile forming in his throat. “It’s pretty,” he lets out in a meekly. “It’s hard to draw on an uneven surface.”

“You can show us how it’s done.” Bucky passes him a marker. “Make it good.”

“For the record, I’m only allowing it so I can sell it later on an auction.” Sam gives him his arm. “But if you draw a dick too, like that preschooler over there, I’m drawing one on your shield.”

Steve huffs and fidgets with a pen cap for a minute. The black spider looks up at him from the cast. It holds more resemblance to a cracked surface than an animal.

It has only six legs. For some reason, Steve thinks Peter gave up mid-doodle.

He hesitates over the cast. He thinks of Peter, the shy Peter, mumbling quietly in the back of the pizza place booth. He never gives himself enough credit. He tries to make himself smaller than he is, and his first assumption always is that people don’t want to listen to him unless they state otherwise. He would be completely broken up about Sam’s arm. Sam must have asked him for a signature because Peter would never do this on his own volition. He was probably too afraid to refuse, thus the hurried, tiny drawing came to life.

He smiles fondly and writes _Mr. America_ next to the small spider.

Sam scowls and Bucky lets out a laugh.

“I’ll catch up on _The Bachelor_ later, guys,” Steve hands the marker back. “I think I’m gonna go check on my kid.”

Bucky helps himself to his plate of pizza. “Your loss.”

When he enters the room, Peter is asleep on Tony’s lap.

He closes the door behind him quietly and none of them so much as stir. He sets the hot cocoa on the nearby desk. He needed to bring something to make himself useful. To have an excuse because he couldn’t just drop by Peter’s room unprompted, because Capitan America is a fucking coward _and if that isn’t a good headline for the papers-_

But it turned out he didn’t need an excuse. There’s a small part of him that worries about how easy it was for him to enter (even though Friday is watching at all times, not to mention two Avengers seated in the living room) but it’s mildly subdued just by how peaceful the two looked.

Tony is propped on a mountain of pillows. It’s been such a long time since Steve saw him properly asleep, he looks almost alien to him for a minute. Stark Pad lies forgotten, tangled in reds and golds of Iron Man sheets.

Peter is sprawled on top of him, arms securely around Tony’s middle even in his sleep. Affection rushes through Steve like a lightning bolt and he forgets how to move for the longest moment.

He shakes his head, trying to make sense again. He settles on the vacant armchair tucked under the window. There’s not much for him to do, except watch out for his boys, letting them rest. God knows they deserve as much rest as they can get. Right now, if some entity decided to attack New York, Steve would take them down in less than five minutes, so they couldn't disturb his sleeping family.

Unfortunately, this train of thought makes Steve uneasy again. New York has been attacked more than once, and it probably will again more than once in Avengers’ careers. Every day it was a very real possibility – and just a part of Steve’s job to be honest – but it still baffled him that New Yorkers haven’t just collectively packed up and left.

What a bunch of resilient bastards. Steve thinks of them fondly. He might be biased but what other city faces so much lunacy in a day that an alien attack is considered just another Tuesday? How did people grow this desensationalized, he might never know. Not to mention all the times he goes to a coffee shop or a pizza place and somebody says _wow dude, you look just like Captain America._

He turns his gaze to the window, involuntarily. Just in case. Somebody had to be on the lookout for threats, right? Friday already had enough on her plate and Steve didn’t mind some extra work. Even if it meant looking out for wormholes opening up on the sky.

Absently, he notices a mechanism in the corners of one window. In a skyscraper such as Avengers Tower the windows don’t open, air conditioning doing all the work. Probably safety measures, Steve isn’t sure. But safety measures are bent when you are in possession of one enhanced teenager who can climb walls and prefers not to use the elevator. Tony had the window installed there per Peter’s request (not at first, mind you, but it soon became clear that they couldn’t stop him if they tried) and it never bothered Steve before. Now it seems to him like another threat – a weak link that will let more monsters into Peter’s room.

He considers telling Tony about the window (because Steve wouldn’t even know where to begin. Glue it together?) when Peter yawns loudly.

Steve almost fall out of his chair. He whips his head around to meet Peter’s sheepish gaze.

“m sorry,” he mumbles.

Each and every concern escape Steve at the sound of his voice. Peter looks at him and his eyes are clear and surprisingly calm.

“Good morning to you too.”

Peter frowns with a small smile playing at his lips. “It’s three pm.”

Steve shrugs. “My bad. Good afternoon then.”

“’saokay. Time’s relative.”

“Oh?”

His chest squeezed, but for the first time, he doesn’t mind the feeling. Peter tightens his hold on Tony like an Iron Man-sized teddy bear.

“Like if you had two clocks that are far enough to each other, one would show ten in the morning and the other one, I dunno, Tuesday.” His speech is still slurred with sleep, but his eyes are remarkably lucid. Steve is completely hypnotized. “Or if one was near an object with the different gravitational field, something big like Hulk. Wait, does time moves differently ‘round Hulk?”

Tony hums beside him. “Don’t think so, Hawking. Go back to sleep before you melt your Pops’ brain.”

“’was Einstein and you know it.”

“Whatever. I’m telling Bruce you called him fat.”

Peter whines something unintelligible.

Steve is somewhere between laughing and crying, and god he’s such a mess. The fact remains that it was the most he had heard from Peter in weeks and it almost makes him feel giddy.

_God, keep it together, Rogers._

“Now I’m interested. What if I wanna know more about it? Time… relativity?”

“I’ll lend you a book” speaks Tony at the same time as Peter says “issa called time dilation, actually. It describes a difference of elapsed time between two events. You can measure it if you have observers that are either moving relative to each other- or-“

He doesn’t want Peter to stop talking so he nods encouragingly. “Uh-huh.”

“-or like, it depends on their proximity to a gravitational mass.”

“Really.” There are tears in his eyes. Calm down, Rogers, goddamnit. He can’t cry every time he hears Peter’s voice. He doesn’t want to freak him out further.

Peter could be talking about time relativity, astrophysics or goddamned magic and Steve would still drink up every word.

Tony runs his hand through Peter’s hair as he continues to mumble about concepts Steve is way too old to understand. Space is cold and it holds too many enemies for Steve to truly appreciate, but as Peter continues to drowsily ramble about it, Steve is wholly captivated.

It isn’t until Peter’s voice starts to gradually fade that Tony speaks up. “Now I expect a full essay on time dilation from you, darling. Due Monday because I’m generous like that.”

“That’s okay. I know a person or two who will write it for me. In their sleep.”

“They sound awesome.” Mumbles Peter.

Steve chuckles. “They are.”

Tony rolls his eyes. “Aren’t you two chipper today? Seems to me like somebody got their beauty sleep.”

“I slept way longer than I wanted to. The real question is how long did you sleep?”

“I’m literally still in bed, Stevie.”

“So, you didn’t miss breakfast today or anything?”

“Peter,” Tony whispers conspiratorially. “You need to call the Avengers. Captain America is bullying me.”

Peter snickers weakly into the covers. It’s the best sound Steve heard in his life. “But you should eat something, though. You deserve to be bullied.”

“Oh, okay, mom. I’m an adult here. You don’t need to tell me how to eat and shower.”

Steve noticed Peter’s instant change in mood. He skids down from Tony’s middle and burrows his face in the pillows. “But you’ve been with me the whole time. And yesterday. I- you don’t have to-“

“Kiddie. You just recited Einstein’s Theory of Relativity from memory, don’t play dumb. You know I’m Tony Stark. I only do things I wanna do.”

Steve smiles. “Well…”

“Yes, _darling._ I’m aware you two have me wrapped around your little fingers. My argument still stands.”

“I was gonna mention Pepper.” Steve shrugs. “But I love to hear you finally admitting to it.”

Tony scowls at him but _Peter is smiling_ and Steve has no regrets.

“I’m just sorry,” babbles Peter from the safety of his blanket. “You must be tired, and you can’t take care of me all the time.”

Tony leans down to plant a kiss on his nose. “That’s just part of the job, kiddo. It’s on my resume, I’ll show you later.”

“Can you at least please take a shower?”

“What did I say about showers?”

“But Mr. Stark, you smell real bad.”

Uh-oh.

It’s back to Mr. Stark then. The honorific was something that fluctuated with Peter’s moods. It was hard to get Peter to call Tony anything but Mr. Stark for the longest time, but they made some progress. With Steve, Peter struggled between _Mr. Rogers, Mr. Captain,_ (the forever infamous _Mr. America),_ and occasionally _Steve_ or _Pops._ It didn’t escape them that most of the time Peter avoided addressing them directly at all.

They don’t correct Peter on honorifics. He speaks to them with what he’s most comfortable with. Calling Peter out on it would only make him more uncomfortable. Especially when he felt the need to regress back to the early pleasantries of their relationship.

Tony shakes his head. “Aren’t you charming little nugget?” Tony reluctantly untangles himself off Peter. He takes his time to do it gently and tuck the covers around him. Peter buries himself in the pillows. “Always first with the compliments .”

“You’re wearing the same shirt as yesterday,” adds Steve helpfully. “That’s an invite for tons of compliments.”

“Okay, I’m going, you two are not ganging up on me,” he kisses Peter’s head, before standing. “Who knows how that will turn out?”

 _Are you gonna be okay_ is what he means.

“We’re gonna be okay,” he will make sure of that.

Tony stops on his way out to steal a kiss. He runs a hand through Steve’s hair and ruins whatever effort Steve has put into it in the morning. “I’ll be back in a blink, fresh and serving Hugo Boss. Yell if you need me?”

Peter blinks up from the pile, sleepy and relaxed. Steve's heart swells.

“Will do.”

They fall into comfortable silence after that. Peter falls asleep shortly after Tony leaves and Steve remains seated at his chair. It feels right – watching over Peter. Steve feels like he’s exactly where he supposed to be.

Peter looks so small under the layers of covers, but in a good way – it makes him seem protected, hidden away in the pile. His baby face and tousled brown hair are the only things visible and he looks so relaxed. Little Iron Mans look up at Steve from the covers, menacing, protecting Peter from the outside world.

He considers picking up the discarded tablet. Lately, he’s been getting better with digital painting. Programs are still a tad confusing to Steve and he’s pretty sure he only uses a small percentage of their full possibilities, keeping his drawings simple. He’s rarely satisfied with the result. His drawings seem childish compared to what he can do on paper, but he fairly enjoys the experience – he likes the cleanliness of the tablet. He hopes that with some practice he will be able to use it for something more than simple outlines.

He likes the messiness of traditional painting too. Drawing digitally makes him feel on a display. He’s aware of his every mistake, which often shuts down his creative process, but with the paper, he feels like he’s flying through a cloud. His eyes glaze over, not seeing the drawing until it’s complete.

Steve’s mind is pretty foggy these days, so he picks up one of Peter’s notebooks and steals a page. Drawing comes automatically to him. Details don’t matter – he lets his hand fly across the page, every once in awhile sneaking a look at a sleeping teenager.

He takes his time, drawing the visible mop of hair extra messy when Peter stirs. Steve’s attention snaps to the boy.

Peter shifts under the covers and pulls them over his head, burrowing himself further. Steve’s smiles fondly and resumes drawing.

It isn’t until he hears a distinctive sound coming from the pile. He freezes, quiet.

A whimper comes from under the covers.

_Shit._

Steve puts the notebook aside. “Pete?”

There is no answer. The boy curls in on himself.

Steve is at loss. He doesn’t know what to do. Tony should be back in a minute. He has to because Steve has to be careful – he has to be _careful_ , one move and he’s gonna startle Peter – he can’t even touch Peter, let alone wake him up from a nightmare.

Peter continues to stir under the covers. His little whimpers are getting louder, and Steve’s chest tightens with each one. He puts his face in his hands, feeling like the biggest douchebag in the universe.

“Petey,” he tries a little louder. He can’t leave his corner of the room or the spell will be broken. Peter looked so peaceful just a few minutes ago, he can’t ruin whatever tentative trust he has left for him. “Petey, please. It’s okay, it’s just a nightmare.”

His words help as much as Steve himself for the past few days. If anything, they make Peter more distressed.

He needs to get Tony. He is helpless, he is so fucking useless, he needs to get Tony before he screws Peter up even more than he already had-

Whimpers turn into sobs and something in Steve breaks into a million pieces.

“Fuck it,” he climbs the bed, settling next to Peter. Carefully and so slowly he pulls the covers away from his face. Peter keeps his eyes squeezed shut. “Petey-pie, you’re okay, you’re safe. You need to wake up, sweetheart, it’s just a bad dream-“

He touches Peter’s arm, even though he knows what’s coming.

Peter lurches up with a cry. Steve sees the leg kicking out but doesn’t do anything to stop it and it knocks the wind out of his lungs. He goes flying off the bed and Peter falls from the other side.

Peter backs to the far corner of the room, gasping for air. “-m- sorry, I- sorry-“

Steve scrambles to his feet. “It’s okay, Pete, you’re alright.”

He circles the bed and kneels before Peter. Peter shakes his head. “’m sorry!”

“That’s okay, baby, please just breathe, okay?” Peter gasps for air, fear evident on his face. “Slowly, in and out, okay?”

Peter shakes his head and more tears spill down his cheeks “I can’t – I can’t-“

“It was just a nightmare, just a dream-“ Peter wheezes painfully. Steve's hands wander to his shoulders, desperately trying to ground him. “You’ve got this, you’ve got this. In and out, like me, right?”

Peter shakes in his little corner, trying to follow his lead. He takes huge gulping breaths but still sounds like he’s choking-

“Peter, you’re okay,” Steve tries to keep panic off his voice. “Slowly, honey, you’ve got this-“

“I can’t! I can’t-“

He’s clutching desperately at his chest, he looks like he’s almost in pain and _oh-_

_Oh shit._

“Peter, I’m gonna be right back.” He bolts out of the room as fast as his legs can take him.

He lunges to his and Tony’s room, straight for the drawers. He throws out everything from inside, looking for one small object. He finds it easily and runs back to Peter’s room.

The whole endeavor lasts less than eight seconds (thank you, enhanced super-soldier legs) and he finds Peter in the same spot.

Peter looks up at him scared, breath coming out in wheezes and it’s a sound that is so familiar to Steve he berates himself for not noticing it sooner. “I’ve got something, you know how to use it?”

But Peter looks at the inhaler with no recognition. He’s probably not even seeing it.

Steve swears under his breath and touches Peter’s face. “Baby, I need to give it you and it will be all over, I promise.”

The distress in Peter’s eyes is almost too much for Steve, but then he opens his mouth and Steve swiftly puts the inhaler between his lips. He presses the button and Peter takes a big slurping breath. He watches as Peter holds it for a minute before exhaling.

Peter’s breathing calms down into something steadier. Steve’s lungs follow his lead and they sit like that, just breathing for a while.

He runs his thumb over Peter’s cheek, swiping the offending tears away. “Better now?”

“How did you-“ Peter licks his lips, looking lost. “I don’t have asthma- anymore.”

“I know.”

Peter turns his wide brown eyes to him. “Then why-“

“You’ve had asthma for your whole life. When you couldn’t breathe, you went looking for an inhaler. Panic attack or not, your body remembers that.”

Peter stares at him. Steve missed these brown orbs so much. “Uhm. Do you…?”

“Sometimes.” Steve smooths the curls away from his face. “That’s why I have it.”

Peter’s body went through so many changes in such a short time. He’s so strong and enhanced in every way he can be, but his body remembers being weak and scrawny, just like Steve was before the serum – and now after enduring weeks of medical torture, almost on no food, it’s back to being scarred and weak again. It makes sense for some signals to get lost in translation. Asthma attacks aren’t easy but it’s something Steve knows how to deal with.

Peter blinks slowly. “Oh.”

He slowly comes back to himself, but something is still clearly wrong. Although his breathing somehow stabilized, his shoulders are tense and hard a rock. Peter avoids his gaze pointedly.

Steve realizes his hands are still on Peter and pulls away quickly. Peter ducks his head in shame.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Steve assures hurriedly, getting on his feet. He backs away to his chair.

Peter brings his legs to his chest and pulls on his hair. “It’s not. I can’t-“

“It’s okay,” he repeats. “I mean it, Pete. You just need rest. Do you want me to get Tony?”

Peter shakes his head, face hidden in his arms. Steve takes a seat and pulls the notebook back on his lap.

It takes a few minutes, but eventually, Peter uncurls from his position. In one swift movement, he sneaks back into bed, pulling covers over his ears.

Steve smiles sadly. Tony comes in soon after, smelling of expensive shampoo and not Hugo Boss, and asks _everything okay?_

It’s not, not yet anyway. Not everything, but they are okay and it’s all that matters right now. Peter pretends to be asleep when Tony settles next to him. Steve finishes his drawing. “We’re okay.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the wait everyone. yall know what I've been doing, so again - no excuse. thank you for your lovely comments and kudos as always!
> 
> just heads up, Tony has a pretty big panic attack in this chapter. stay safe

Tony doesn’t consider himself a light sleeper. He puts sleep away as much as his body lets him, staying awake till ungodly hours but once he’s knocked out cold he can stay that way until late morning.

Steve wakes up at the softest of sounds. Which is a real bitch when you live in a city that never sleeps, even without the little bonus of super-hearing. Their bedroom is soundproofed from the outside, with a system of additional barriers to be put up on the Bad Days. Tony reused the same design in Peter’s room, with some added reinforcements.

He tries not to bask too obviously in the safety that comes with sharing a bed with an ex-soldier. Steve wakes up because his fight or flight response kicks in _hard._ It’s not cute, it’s fucking heartbreaking – but it’s also a guarantee that come hell or high-water Tony will know about it first.

It’s also what brings him out of the slumber that night, as Steve lunges up to a sitting position, ready for an attack.

His shoulders relax just as fast and Tony’s fogged mind registers that they are safe. He blinks the sleep away from his eyes, as Steve rubs a hand over his tired face. “Tony?”

He mumbles out something that vaguely sounds like a twin _Stevie?_

Strong arms circle his waist. Tony leans into the touch. “Rise and shine, sweetheart.”

“Nice try, mom. I don’t wanna go to school.”

A sigh tickles the hair on the back of his neck. Steve pulls him close to his chest apologetically. “I’m sorry.”

God, Tony hates that word. He twists in Steve’s grip to press a kiss wherever he can reach. It ends up being wet peck under his chin. “Baby Monitor?”

“Baby Monitor.”

He can feel the guilt rolling off his husband in waves. For not being able to do more. Tony doesn’t have the patience for guilt, not when it’s eating away one of his favorite people in the world. He wishes he could scare it off with repulsors like a petty criminal.

Instead, he turns and catches Steve’s lips – possessively like it would achieve the same effect. They both have guilt complex the size of Manhattan, something they will need to talk about eventually.

But not tonight. Tonight a distressed teenager is waiting outside of their room, requiring his attention. Tony pulls away regretfully (but not really – when it comes to sleeping or helping his beloved kid it’s not even a question).

He pulls the covers over his husband. “Get some sleep, handsome.”

“You too.”

Tony runs his fingers through the tousled blond hair. “We will.”

Steve watches him as he stretches, chasing away the remnants of sleep. Tony wishes he knew how to break it through his thick skull that _none of it is his fault._ It’s a conversation for another day though, hopefully after session or two of therapy.

He walks out of the bedroom to meet Peter standing sheepishly in the hallway.

“Morning, Underoos. What are we up for tonight?”

Peter fidgets with the hem of his pajamas nervously. It’s a sight Tony didn’t think he would miss. “I’m sorry, I thought I would be okay tonight, but then I woke up-“

“Hey, hey, not what I asked. I was thinking more hot chocolate, but I guess we could order something-“

“No,” Peter flinches. Tony learned that he does that when he’s feeling vulnerable – scolds himself for disagreeing with Tony. Tony keeps his expression soft and encouraging, storing that little fact away in the corner of his mind. “I mean- I was thinking… lab?”

The distance between them is enough to make Tony anxious. He closes it, unable to keep his hands off his kid. He settles on rubbing Peter’s arms up and down. “Sure thing, kiddie. But not before hot chocolate.”

Peter doesn’t argue, and why would he? Tony makes the best hot chocolate in the whole world. And if he puts a few spoons of chocolate more than recommended, that’s just a secret between him and the universe. Peter’s sweet tooth goes miles beyond what’s recommended and Tony has to manage.

After a quick stop by the kitchen, they make their way down the lab. Just like yesterday, Tony ends up telling him stories of his and Rhodey’s college shenanigans. The day before that they ended up sprawled on the couches, watching _Community_. Tony is going to try and steer the evening that way again because like with a toddler, watching TV was the quickest way to get Peter to sleep. The poor boy needed it.

The last few days passed in a blur. Peter continues to be torn between needing space and being a clingy koala. Tony and Steve remain close, always in the peripheral of his vision until he requires their attention.

Tony spends some nights in Peter’s bedroom, ready to fend off the nightmares. Some nights Peter wants to sleep alone but each of these nights he races quietly to their room. He never goes inside, settles on pacing down the hallway. Steve always wakes up to his footsteps.

The trust between them is… fragile at best. Peter is shaky after nightmares. He’s alright watching TV with Steve, eating meals with Steve, but the nights – they are all Tony’s. Tony is glad that Peter consciously chooses to come to them first. It has to count for something. If Peter holed up in his room after a nightmare, scared and alone, Tony’s heart would not make it.

Tony has a complicated relationship with the universe – with gods and higher beings that rule this hopeless piece of dirt. On one hand, he wants to hold somebody responsible – he wants to scream and fight and hurt, because how fucking dare they hurt his kid like that. Peter deserved the world and Tony – fuck, Tony will give it all to him. His kid does not deserve waking up in cold sweat, scared and tired beyond measure.

Tony has a few words to whoever is in charge.

But on the other hand, Peter is _here._ On a ratty old couch Tony never had the heart to throw out. Peter holds the cup with both hands, soaking up the warmth because his fingers are always cold. He listens to Tony speak like it’s his own private Late Night Show, and Tony never paid much mind to the sound of his own voice until Peter told him he liked it.

From all the things media attached to his name in the past, _humble_ was never one of them. But Tony is torn. His kid was taken and _it just wasn’t fair._ If not to him then to Peter – the sweet Peter who is Tony’s personal ball of sunshine and the only good thing left in the world. And when he was gone, Tony was in ruin – he pleaded, prayed and bargained and now – now he’s not sure.

Maybe something listened. Maybe no one cared.

He thinks maybe someone listened because his kid is right there with him after weeks of being gone. He’s not going to throw away a gift like that.

Peter sits with one leg thrown over Tony’s lap and Tony treats it like a treasure. He rubs soothing circles around his ankle, thinking up easy-going stories to keep Peter out of his head.

After a long monolog about MIT’s spring break of ‘87, he finishes his hot chocolate. Peter is curled up under his arm and Tony applauds himself for having the foresight to bring a set of blankets down the lab. They might not need TV tonight after all.

He’s about to pull the blankets up to Peter’s chin and call it a night when Peter speaks up. “Did you find my web-shooters?”

He takes a second to process the question. “Yeah. Yeah, they’re here. Along with your backpack and at least ten overdue essays.”

“Oh, right. That.” Peter chuckles weakly. It sounds strained. “Good. Good, I assumed they didn’t, you know, find them. I mean if they did, they wouldn’t…”

He gestures to his wrists, unnecessarily. They wouldn’t cut his hands open, looking for inexistent webs. Tony _knows._

“I got them. Might got a little banged up, but it’s nothing we can’t fix. We can have a look at them tomorrow.”

“Could I – Could I have them now?”

His voice is tiny again. Tony runs a hand through his curls. “What’s with the rush? Are we taking a swing around the park?”

Peter’s face lights up. “Could we?”

Shit. Tony hates to tell him no.

“I- No, kiddo, I don’t think so. I was just kidding.” It’s a punch to Tony’s gut. “Not the best idea for now.”

Peter nods. “I know. No – I know. It’s just… would be nice.”

Not for Tony it wouldn’t. If it were up to him, he wouldn’t leave Peter out of his sight for the next twenty years, maybe more.

“But I don’t really want to like… go swinging or anything. I was just thinking…“

He rubs Peter’s shoulder up and down. “Thinking what, kiddo?”

Peter forces a shrug, casting his eyes down. “I don’t know. That maybe it would, you know. Feel better or whatever.”

He says that last part so quiet Tony almost didn’t hear him – wouldn’t hear him if he wasn’t paying a hundred percent of his attention to the kid in his arms.

He slides his hands down to Peter’s forearms. They’re still wrapped in bandages. The tissue is almost healed. It’s mutilated and rough, but it’s lightyears away from what they have been dealing with a week ago.

The same can’t be said about what’s beneath the skin, hiding entangled nerves and tendons. They found early on that Peter’s healing is a double-edged sword. Precisely, the first time they had to cut him open to extract a bullet from a healed wound.

He traces the injured wrists gently. Peter doesn’t flinch under his touch and it’s one of few things keeping Tony somewhat sane. They never actually found out if Peter’s healing allowed him to scar. The kid took some nasty hits in his short life, but his skin remained unblemished. To Tony, it’s only a half relief.

He thinks of the arc reactor adorning his chest. Not of reactor alone or the implications of wearing it – but of the small compartment storing nanites. Lately, he doesn’t go without his armor for too long. Not since he has so much to lose, so much to protect.

If holding onto his web-shooters is enough to make Peter safe, Tony doesn’t have a bone in his body able to refuse him.

“Sure. Why not?” he says in the quiet of the lab. “I think I have them somewhere around here. We can take a look at them, unless you’re too tired…”

Of course he is not too tired, and of course he beams like he has no regard for Tony’s cardiogram. It blinds Tony with its brightness and it’s such a contrast to the past few weeks. The kid is will be a death of him and he doesn’t even mind.

Tony helps him up. He wraps a blanket around his shoulders because it’s nighttime and growing spider-babies should be wrapped in blankets during nighttime. Also, Peter makes an adorable burrito and it is a sight Tony missed most of all. It’s the closest thing he has to wrapping Peter up in a bubble wrap, which Steve informed him is not an actual parenting technique.

Tony puts on _Community_ as background noise. AC/DC can wait until morning. Together they get to work.

When Tony rolls into the kitchen it’s well around noon. He took a shower keeping in mind two enhanced noses he for some reason choose to share living space with.

For him not sleeping is always easier than waking up. He managed to put Peter in bed shorty after sunrise and kept himself firmly attached at his side. Thankfully, they exhausted the limit of nightmares for the night. Peter remained still and all tucked in, even after Tony untangled himself of his spidery legs.

The cup of coffee shoved in his hands smells like heaven.

“Oh, hello there, love.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “I’m not gonna ask if you’re talking to me or the coffee.”

The first sip burns his tongue and the sensations clears up his foggy brain. “Excuse me, and who are you? What are you doing in my kitchen?”

Steve takes the pan off the stove. Something smells delicious. “Nothing, I guess. Not anymore, anyway.”

“You monster,” Tony sets the cup down. “You put that back.”

Steve lifts the pan above his head but Tony is too proud to try and reach it. Not his fault his husband is a damn tree. Instead, he wraps arms around Steve’s middle. He lets his weight lean against Steve, petty. “How do I always find you in the kitchen? Are you stress baking?”

Steve chuckles. “I could try. Maybe next time. It’s really the least I can do, and you look like a living death.”

“Leave flattery to me, darling, you suck at it.”

“Well, that was not remotely flattering.”

Tony tilts his head. “I vividly remember installing a mirror in our room. Was that not flattering enough?” He places a kiss on Steve’s exposed shoulder. “I could go bigger, but you might not like it.”

“I’ve known you too long,” Steve sighs. “I know I won’t.”

“Oh? I was thinking giant plane banner saying _I scored that_ with your picture on it, but if it’s not enough…”

Steve swats him with a dishcloth and Tony ducks with a chuckle. Instead of pulling away he shifts and rests on Steve’s other side.

Steve covers his hand with his own. “How was it?”

Tony sighs. He nuzzles his face into Steve’s shoulder and rests his eyes for a moment. “Alright. We went to sleep shortly after seven. I saw you leave for your run and get back.”

Steve stirs the pan pensively. “Was it a nightmare?”

“When isn’t it?” It broke Tony’s heart. Peter’s mind was plagued by nightmares even on his best days. Tony was exhausted and Peter… Peter’s face held shadows deeper than Tony’s and Tony can’t think about it too much if he wants to keep his shreds of sanity. “Sometimes even when he sleeps, I can tell it’s restless.”

He just wants his kid to get some goddamned rest.

It’s the same routine every day. Tony holds Peter at night. When he doesn’t Peter comes to their room. It wakes Steve up. Steve wakes up Tony and Tony watches comedies with Peter on the couch until the remnants of the nightmare fade away into a morning.

Neither of them rests.

“One night,” he mutters against Steve. “I just wish for one night of peace.”

Steve hummed sadly. “I know. Me too.”

It’s easy to lean against Steve and close his eyes for a moment. They’re not okay yet, but they will be.

Steve is warm and he makes him breakfast. Their kid is sleeping in his bedroom after they pulled an all-nighter in the lab, fixing up his web-shooters. Things are almost back to their normal not-normal life they have created.

When Peter was gone, Tony was lost. It can’t be described any other way. He doesn’t know who he was, but he was not himself. There was no room for hope. He should be a support to Steve, to his strong, lovely husband, who was every bit as tormented as he was, and yet he couldn’t even look at him.

It’s old news – Tony being a shitty husband to Steve. It was written over Tony’s slate, the old one – the one he hid away. It was no use to be concerned with it now. It was full of grave mistakes he had no way of fixing.

But maybe he can find it again if only to fix this one – to make up for this one mistake. For leaving his husband – his lovely Steve, who makes him feel warm and his heart swell with affection – leaving him when their child had been snatched away from them.

He can never make up for it but he will die trying.

He presses a tender kiss to Steve’s shoulder, watching him cook.

“Are those scrambled eggs? And bacon?” he cradles his fingers through blond hair at the base of Steve’s neck. “Gorgeous, when did you have a chance to read my mind?”

“You don’t know? I had Wanda to find out what you want this morning. Turns out America’s most common breakfast was a way to go.”

“I feel like there’s a pun about your name there somewhere, but I give up. It’s too early.”

“It’s one pm.”

“Maybe in your kitchen. In my kitchen it’s Too Early o’clock and if you don’t believe me, you can ask our genius son, he’ll tell you all about how time is moving around Hulk and whatnot-“

He gets cut off with a kiss, to which he responds enthusiastically. Steve twists in his grip and puts his big hands on Tony’s waist, pulls him flush to himself.

Steve has to bend his neck to do it and. God. Tony loves him so much. He savors the kiss meticulously, twisting Steve’s shirt into a crumbled mess. He can feel hard muscles hidden under the thin fabric and he feels much more awake.

He, in turn, needs to strain his neck to reach Steve’s lips. It’s a guilty pleasure of his, feeling this small against his husband giant frame, and something he will sooner die than admit out loud. Steve’s arms encircle his waist and even without his added strength he almost swipes him off his feet.

He half-consciously registers that Steve turned the stove off, which opens a new range of possibilities to Tony. Steve is a mountain of hard muscles, but Tony manages to steer him to the island and settle him between his legs.

He breaks the kiss when it becomes hard to breathe but Steve doesn’t pull away. His lips travel across his cheek and all the way to his temple and it’s just _so sweet_ something in Tony churns pleasantly.

“You’re not real.” There’s no real melancholy to his words. Just a dreamy fogginess wrapped around his brain, making it hard to think. “I’m passed out on the bathroom floor in Malibu. You’re a drug-induced vision.” Blasphemy. No hallucination could hold a candle to a wonderful being that is his caring, unfairly hot, breakfast-cooking husband. “Holy shit. Tomorrow’s hangover gonna be a _bitch.”_

“What do I need to do,” murmurs Steve, hands moving dangerously low. “To remind you that I’m here?”

Tony shivers. “You can – ah! – try.”

He feels Steve smile against his kiss. “You’re not in Malibu. You’re here. With me. Five years sober.”

“Sweetheart, we need to polish your dirty talk. I might have some educational movies that-“ Steve chooses that moment to push his knee up – again, unfair. Tony sucks in a sharp breath, all wit escaping him.

He refuses to grind against Steve like a horny teenager. “On second thought I could go without breakfast,” he mutters between kisses. He catches the soft lips again, but only for a second, as Steve trails down his jaw. “For a little longer.”

“How long?”

He nips at the delicate place joining his jaw and neck. Tony gasps and grips the broad shoulders tightly. “At least until tomorrow.”

Steve’s chuckle vibrates under his skin. “As fun as that sounds,” he murmurs into his neck. “You still look barely awake.”

“Take me to bed then.”

Steve sighs against his skin. “Tony…”

Tony cups his face and brings down into a kiss before he has a chance to ruin this moment with his common sense. “We will make it a late lunch,” he covers the back of his neck, pulls him closer. “I’ll not complain once.” He cradles through the soft hair at his nape. “I’ll even drink green tea for the whole day.”

Steve hooks his hands under Tony’s thighs and hoists him up in one swift movement. Tony lets out a satisfied hum and wraps his arms and legs around Steve.

They barely make it to the bedroom. Thankfully, the halls are empty, which is a rare happenstance in the Tower. Tony makes a quick mental note to finally get around programming Friday with a privacy protocol, something that could lock any unwanted guests out. He doesn’t have time to ponder about it too much before they stumble on the bed and Steve attacks his neck with a litany of wet kisses.

Tony lets out a content sigh and rolls his hips up to meet Steve’s.

Steve hisses out. “Menace.”

Tony sneaks a hand under his shirt and relishes in the feel of sculpted muscles. “Say it like you mean it.”

“You know very well what I mean,” he dips his head low, capturing Tony in a hungry kiss. Tony makes a pleased sound, smiling into his lips as the super soldier grinds his hips down against him.

When Friday speaks up, Tony couldn’t be bothered less. “Boss, I’m inclined to inform you about the executed override on my systems.”

Ha, hell no.

“God, Friday, read the room,” he moans under Steve’s touch. He didn’t program his AI to be this stupid. “Just deal with it.”

“I’m sorry, Boss. The override might be a cause for a future security breach.”

Steve pulls away, taking all of his warmth with him. Son of a bitch. “What?”

“Don’t you dare, Stevie-“

“What security breach, Friday?”

Steve is climbing off him, concern twisting his features. An uneasy feeling churns in Tony’s stomach. “Hey, it’s probably just a bug-“

“Friday, where’s Peter?”

The AI is silent for half a second too long – which for her might as well be an eternity.

“Boss, that information is part of the override.”

“What?”

No.

No, fuck no.

He surges up from the bed. “What the hell?”

“What? Tony, what does it mean?”

His heart leaps to his throat. “Where is he? Where is Peter? What the fuck happened?”

“Little Boss’ location is restricted due to the nature of the override.”

Like fuck it is.

That

That just can’t be true.

Steve’s eyes go wide. “Tony-“

Tony leaps out of the room. “Friday, run Digital Defense protocol right now!”

It’s not happening.

Doors to Peter’s room are closed but not locked – he doesn’t have time to think about it because as he enters the little bedroom _Peter is gone._

Peter is gone.

“Peter!”

God, _please, no._

“Tony, what’s going on-“

The bed is all rumpled and the bathroom empty. He can’t keep panic out of his voice. “Peter! Friday, tell me right now- where is Peter- he- Peter! It can’t be-“

The walls are closing in on him. He can’t breathe. His kid can’t be gone.

His kid can’t be gone.

That was over, he’s not gone.

He’s safe- he was safe – _he can’t fucking breathe._

Oh god, the bed is empty.

“Tony,” strong arms hold him upright. It does very little to ease his panic. “Tony, calm down, please-“

“Peter is- oh my god, Peter, he is-”

“Breathe, Tony,” wait when did Steve get there? Is Tony dreaming? “In and out, sweetheart, _please._ Breath with me-“

Who fucking cares when Peter is _gone-_

“Steve,” Tony can’t recognize his husky voice. “Steve- Peter- where is he, Steve I can’t- He’s can’t-“

“We will find him. Tony, please breathe with me, we will find him-“

His chest hurts. Somebody stabbed him and oh god, somebody is sobbing, is it Peter? No, Peter is gone, which means…

“God, Steve,” he wheezes out. “Peter-“

“We will find him. Tony, we will-“

“No,” cries Tony. He clutches at Steve’s sweatshirt, drowning. “I gave him his web-shooters– oh my god, Steve, he is- Peter is-“

“He’s fine, Tony, it’s alright,” _it’s not- it’s not-_ “That’s good, you see? See, his window is open, he must have taken them for a swing.”

“No!” the cry tears its way out of his throat. The window, what window-

The window. The window that Tony installed in his room. It’s ajar. “No-“

Tony’s legs give out on him. Steve could easily catch him, but Tony is already crumbling down the floor – if it’s even there, he can’t even _see –_

He shakes and he cries, and Steve must be freaking out, but Tony- Tony’s blood freezes in his veins.

Steve grips his arms tightly but Tony barely feels it. “Steve. Steve, I took out his web fluid. I took his web fluid, I- _he-_ oh my _god.”_

His husband freezes. “What?”

Tony leaps to his feet, tapping a sequence into his watch. “I have to go- No, no I have to- I need to- I need to fix the override.”

The suit forms around him halfway, before he swats it away, back to the nanotech compartment. “No, I have to! Wait, I-” he taps his watch again. “Peter-

The panic blinds him.

He doesn’t know what to do.

He needs to find Peter but to find Peter he needs to fix Friday,

but _Peter is gone_ and every second counts and _fuck not again-_

“Tony.”

Steve shakes his arms, bringing him back to Peter’s bedroom. The gauntlet forms and disintegrates around his arm, like it can’t decide either.

“Fix the override,” Steve says firmly. “I’ll get the jet. We will find him.”

“I- yes. Yes, I- Jesus fucking Christ Steve, I can’t-“

“Tony,” Steve cups his face, guides him to look up. “Fix the override. Find out what’s going on.”

The radiant blue eyes are the only thing keeping Tony inside his body. “Yes. Yeah, I will.”

“Deep breaths, okay?” Steve puts his hand over Tony’s chest like it could physically help him. It does. “We will worry later.”

Easier said than done, but he was right. Action first.

All that Tony knows is that Peter is not in his room and it’s all kinds of wrong. He needs to be level-headed. He needs to keep his heart inside his chest.

“Okay,” he breathes out heavily. “Friday, talk to me.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi loves! Thank you so much for your comments and kudos <3 I bring to you another humble chapter. There's a lot of talking in this one so brace yourselves.

Steve is _this close_ to losing it.

He spends every day watching hours upon hours of security tapes. Natasha and Clint are out there, hunting down nameless scientists. He does nightly rounds in the _most secure building_ in the world.

And it still wasn’t enough.

He goes through a dazzling range of emotions in record time. Panic, horror, dread, anger, all morph into one, making Steve see red.

He gathers Bucky and Sam with a single command. They are already gearing up around the landing pod, jet ready to take flight.

Steve didn’t waste time with his uniform. He barely paid enough mind to find his shield and his boots.

He steps out onto the landing pod in nothing but a shirt and a pair of denim trousers. Cold air hitting his skin should faze him, bring up some buried memories, but this time he doesn’t care.

“Do you have any idea what happened?” Sam asks as they make their way to the jet. “How did they get here?”

“Tony’s working on it. Listen,” he tries to keep his voice steady. He knows this. It’s just a mission. Just another mission. “I need you to scout outside of the Tower. Peter’s window was open, if he was attacked, he might have escaped. The sensors can’t tell us anything, Tony says it’s been deliberate.”

“Damn,” Metal wings spread out on either side of Sam. “On it.”

“Be vigilant,” Steve adds. “He might be anywhere-“

“Found him,” Bucky says abruptly.

Steve spins so fast his head hurts. Bucky is standing a few feet away from the jet, looking up in the distance.

Steve follows his gaze.

Bucky points up to the roof of the landing dock.

“What?”

Bucky tilts his head. “Maybe nobody broke in after all.”

There’s a small figure huddled on the roof.

Okay.

Deep breaths, Rogers.

“Shit.”

Peter sits there curled in a small ball. He’s almost hidden behind the metal rod, lighting up the building but it doesn’t matter. Steve would recognize his kid across the continent.

He sucks in a long breath through the nose. He should be looking around for threats. Is there plane coming? A winged mad-man ready to snatch his kid away?

He wouldn’t know, too scared that if he looks away Peter will disappear.

“Okay.”

Not okay.

“Okay.”

Fuck, he’s on an edge of a goddamned skyscraper.

“He’s alright,” says Bucky. He claps him on the shoulder and Steve feels ready to pass out. Bucky must feel how he deflates with relief under his touch, but doesn’t say anything. “He’s a funny one, remember? Sticky powers, sleeping upside down…”

In Steve’s book, Bucky is one of the smartest people alive. He knows a lot about everything and he knows Steve. The world is how Bucky says it is, not the other way around.

Peter is alright. He believes him.

He catches Bucky’s hand and squeezes it gratefully. “Thank you.”

Sam flanks his other side. “You need a ride up there?”

Steve shakes his head. “No. Thank you.” It takes immense strength to tear his gaze away from Peter. “You need to tell Tony.”

“Got it.”

He should wait for Tony. Tony always berates himself on being a terrible father, but he couldn’t be further away from the truth. From the day they stepped inside that falling apart library his heart was stolen by their curly brown-eyed child.

Logically, he knows Peter won’t fall down. He’s sitting on an edge of a building and it gives Steve heart palpitations but he’s also Spiderman. New York is Peter’s home as much as it is Steve’s and Peter is much more than capable navigating through the skyscrapers.

And. Peter said _L O V E Y O U._ Even after everything Steve has put him through, Peter said I love you _back._

Steve is richer in a set of drawings – all picturing a small boy, tangled in Iron Man sheets. He can spend time in the same room as Peter without giving Peter a panic attack. Things are not good, but they are better.

And Bucky said Peter is alright.

“Go tell Tony. Please.” He lets go of Bucky’s hand. “Sam, can you stay at lookout? Just in case.”

Sam nods. “I’ll have your back, alright.”

Steve trusts them that they will. Now all he has to do is to figure out how to get to that goddamned roof.

Climbing the roof turns out to be a workout and a half.

Steve hates to admit it, but with no sticky powers or a flying suit, it proved to be a challenge. He had to plan out his way up, and thankfully planning is something Steve does well.

There’s no real fear as he climbs his way up. He grips the protruding pieces of construction where he can, jumps off metal poles adorning the wall, and tries not to think too much that he’s hanging off the side of 93 stories building. If he slips, Sam should be somewhere there to catch him, probably – Steve has something else to worry about.

He’s almost at the top. He reaches out to grasp the protruding edge of the building when a small hand catches his.

Steve’s foot slips off the ledge, startled. He tumbles down just a few inches and stops.

Okay, now he’s literally hanging off the edge of a building.

He looks up and meets two brown orbs above his head.

The rush of adrenaline that flared up died down in his veins. “Thanks,” he says eventually.

Peter blinks. “No problem.”

Then he proceeds to pull Steve up like he weighs nothing. Together they make it up on the grid.

Peter lets go of his hand like it burned him. He quickly reclaims his spot, half-hidden behind the pole. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Maybe,” admits Steve. He knows he shouldn’t. Just shows how unqualified he is to taking care of his kid. “But I happen to like it here. It’s breezy. Nice view.”

Peter looks every bit like a kicked a puppy and it sinks down Steve’s soul. “Are you mad?”

“No,” he answers with no hesitation. “Of course not, baby.”

Peter shudders visibly. The name slips out, honestly. Steve could never hold his love for Peter inside for too long. He’s so used to smothering Peter with affection, that part comes to him naturally. It’s strange, not being able to pull him into a safe hug. Make everything go away.

Steve shifts closer, pushing his luck.

“I didn’t wanna make you mad,” Peter says quietly. “How did you know? Did Friday say something?”

“Yeah. Something,” he searches Peter’s eyes. “Did you interfered with her somehow?”

Peter keeps his gaze focused on his hands. “I wanted to go. But- but I didn’t want her to snitch. So I sent her a program that was going to cover for me. It didn’t work I guess.”

“No- no, it worked.” The need to praise his kid is too strong. “She couldn’t tell us anything, except that somebody messed with her. Very impressive. I think. Your dad knows more about that stuff.”

Peter casts his head down. His voice is something small, barely a whisper when he says “Is he mad?”

Steve fights an urge to wrap him in his arms. He wants to, he wants to take him off this damned roof and keep safe for once. “No. He’s very, very worried.”

Worried. Ha. As if he could call him that.

It was stupid, but for a long frantic moment, Steve was genuinely afraid for Tony to… he doesn’t even know what exactly. Tony’s been prone to panic attacks since he met him, but today he was the closest to passing out Steve seen him in years.

He doesn’t think he will be able to forget the pure _anguish_ in Tony’s voice as he cried _I can’t- Steve, I can’t-_

_I can’t lose him._ Steve understood. He couldn’t – he _can’t_ either.

“You scared us, Petey-pie. No one’s mad, I promise. Your dad…” Steve sighs. “You know him. Just… don’t take it too seriously if he runs in here, yelling your head off. You know he has a hard time… dealing with stuff.”

“I didn’t wanna scare you. That’s why I made the program,” Peter rubs at his eyes, which start to grow red. “You weren’t s’posed to know.”

“Petey…” Steve hesitates. Brings his hands closer to himself, grasping at nothing. “When something is bothering you, we wanna know.”

Peter mirrors his position, curling around himself. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I just want to know what you are doing here, sweetheart.”

Peter sniffs and Steve pretends something inside him isn’t shattering to million pieces. “Isstupid.”

“I don’t think it is.” Steve searches his eyes. He desperately wants Peter to look at him. “And I would know, I’ve seen your grades.”

Peter shakes his head. It takes a long, heavy pause, but eventually, he confesses, “I don’t wanna be such a burden anymore.”

His knees are pushed up so close to his chest it must be hard to breathe. He looks scared – but resigned. He can’t even muster the energy to run away from Steve anymore.

Steve thinks back to countless dinners and midnight snacks they shared in the past. He thinks of late nights spent helping Peter with his History homework and going to science fairs to make sure Flash’s parents don’t stick their noses where they’re not needed. He desperately tries to find a precise moment where he failed Peter so miserably as to let him think like that.

“Of course you’re not a burden. That’s not true, Peter. You could never be a burden.”

“But I am,” Peter snaps with a big sob ripping it’s way out his throat. “You were happy before- before a-all this. And now you’re sad all the time. I make you sad. If I wasn’t such a failure- If I didn’t get myself kidnapped- and- and you must be so tired of all my bullshit, all I do is make you sad all the time, but I don’t _want to_ and I’m sorry-“

“Stop,” gasps Steve. “Peter, just- stop.”

Peter’s lip wobbles and he buries his head in his knees.

He looks so small like this. Steve’s thoughts are racing. The city around them is as busy as ever but it all blurs and escapes Steve’s attention. He can only focus on Peter and the line of his shaking arms.

Steve doesn’t even know where to begin.

He needs to gather himself.

“I- Fuck.”

That. That grabs Peter's attention. He looks up, brows knitted with confusion. “What?”

Oh. Okay. If the shoe fits.

“You heard me. I said a bad word. Now you know what I’m about to say is serious.”

Peter looks bewildered, visibly as lost as Steve feels. Tear tracks still fresh on his face. “What?”

“I really, really want to hug you right now. I won’t if you don’t want me to, but I want you to know that.” Steve blurts out. “Peter… do you remember that first Stark Phone we gave you at that library? Just after we met and you blew Tony’s mind with your little robot.”

Peter stares. After a long pause, he mumbles an eloquent “What?”

Steve smiles sadly. “Tony tracked it down the next week. We had no business going to that library, but we wanted to meet you again. Well, it was Tony’s idea, obviously. I would probably send you a text, or something less incriminating.” He sighs. “The thing is, by that point, we had barely one conversation together. And you still were all we could think about for a whole week.”

He laughs wetly. He wants to, from how true the statement was. What the hell made them so attached to this kid? “You tell me what it was. Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe we got ahead of ourselves. Nat said once that me and Tony are a couple of crazy old ladies too cool for cats so we got ourselves a kid. Not- not the best comment to bring up seeing as my point is…” Steve drags his hands across his face. “My point is. You, Peter – you are not some project we picked up for fun. Like that Library. Despite Nat’s bottomless wisdom, you are not a cat. We wanted to take you home as soon as we met you, but we didn’t because… we didn’t want to fuck up.”

“You didn’t,” whispers Peter. “You didn’t, don’t say that, it’s me, it’s me who- you didn’t-“

“I know. I know because you’re not some project we picked up to fuck up. You are our kid. There was no going right or wrong with you. You’re not a burden, sweetie.”

He hates to see Peter crying, but it’s nothing to how he hates not being able to do more. He keeps his distance, carefully. Peter curls one hand over the metal rod, keeping himself steady.

Feeling ready to burst with affection, Steve continues. “We didn’t pick you up like a pet, baby. We were not expecting anything from you. We still aren’t. I thought we fell in love with you that first day when we met you but that is not true. That feeling has grown stronger every day. Me and your dad, we can only love you more, Peter, not less. You don’t have to prove anything to us, baby. You’re already perfect.”

The sounds Peter makes are soul-wrenching.

“I’m not,” Peter weeps into the fabric of his jeans. “I’m not, I’m a fuck-up-“

“You are perfect, Petey-pie. You may not think like that, but I do.”

“I can’t sleep alone,” Peter hiccups. “You made pancakes yesterday and I threw it all up, I’m sorry- I make you and dad sad all the time, I hacked Friday just now-“

“You’re healing. You’re doing so well in such a short time. This thing between us-“ Steve gestures. “-it’s not conditional. You are our kid – you’re my kid. And you’re so, so perfect. You are enough, scars and all.”

The metal rod Peter is holding bends in his grasp.

The lights above their heads go out. The sparks of electricity alarm Steve. He peels Peter’s hand off the pole.

Peter is shaking with sobs, looking at his hand like he has seen a ghost. He quickly retracts it from Steve’s grasp.

“I hurt you,” Peter whispers.

“I’m okay, sweetheart, it’s okay.”

Peter shakes his head. “No- I hurt you. I didn’t want to, I-“ he extends a shaky hand and Steve’s breath catches. Peter puts his palm over Steve’s chest. “I hurt you.”

His touch burns with the warmest of fires and Steve fights against pulling him into a hug. “No, you didn’t. What do you mean, Petey-pie?”

“I hit you here. In the hospital and then again- with the inhaler- I keep hurting you, all the time.” Peter twists the fabric of his shirt. Steve covers his hand with his.

He feels like laughing. “What are you talking about?” then he does laugh, even if it comes out a little weird. “Sunshine, you could never hurt me.”

“Stop,” cries Peter. “I do, I do all the time!”

“Peter,” Steve says softly. “Look at me.”

Peter shakes his head. Steve untwists his fist off his shirt and brings it to his lips.

After a long pause, Peter chokes out. “The man who killed Uncle Ben. I almost killed him.”

That Steve did not expect. He listens intently, hopes the shock doesn’t show on his face.

“I found him. After I got my powers. I wanted to hurt him,” Peter tugs at his hair not so gently. “I had all this plan, I wanted… I… I threw one punch. _One.”_

A sob interrupts his uneven breathing. Steve continues to rub soothing circles on the back of his hand. He hopes it’s encouraging.

“He landed in the hospital. I don’t know if he made it. I’m-“ Peter turns his bloodshot eyes to Steve. “You – you have these powers too and you don’t- you don’t hurt people. I’m always _so careful,_ I am! I always, _always_ hold myself back and I still fuck up. I’m supposed to be strong like you, but somebody always ends up hurt and it’s all my fault-“

“Peter-“

“I thought I had this, that I… controlled _this,_ but then I hurt you and then dad and I broke Sam’s hand- I- I broke Sam’s hand, and then Doctor Banner… and then you again, and I thought I had this! But I don’t and I can’t be around you anymore and even when I’m not punching you, I keep being a burden and you’ll get tired of me and I won’t blame you-“

Steve catches his other hand before he can pull all hair out of his scalp. He stares at him pensively.

Ben’s killer… that’s. Something. Steve will need to revisit that confession. But there’s time for that - not today. Not when Peter is so open, so vulnerable before him. He can’t throw that away.

The other thing though… is right in Steve’s ballpark. “That’s what you’re worried about?”

He cups Peter’s face and this time Peter doesn’t flinch. He looks so miserable, so desperate, maybe almost as half as Steve feels.

“You know what I did today?” He runs a thumb over Peter’s cheek. It’s no use to brush away the tears, as his eyes keep flooding with more but Steve tries anyway. “I crushed a doorknob. Literally five minutes ago.”

Peter hiccups but doesn’t try to get away. So Steve continues. “I was so scared when Friday announced that somebody interfered with her. That she couldn’t tell us where you are. I got a bit overwhelmed.” Understatement of the century. For the longest moment, his world was falling apart. Tony was falling apart. Steve was trying his best not to go down with him. But Peter didn’t need to know all that. “I destroyed so many doorknobs in my career I wonder why they are still here. I think Tony keeps installing them just to mock me. And earlier this week I absolutely demolished the gym because I was feeling a little under the weather, you know?”

Peter sniffs. “Under the weather?”

Another understatement which Peter didn’t need to know about. Steve smoothed the curls out of his face. “In total need of renovation. We’re gonna have a ton of new equipment to test out, once it arrives. The point is – I’ve had these powers a lot longer than you. And even after all this time – after hours upon hours of training – I still make mistakes. Lots of them. We all slip up sometimes, Pete. I would be more surprised if you didn’t.”

“I can’t- but I can’t. What if next time somebody gets really, really hurt?

“That first few days after we got you back,” Steve starts softly. “You were bruised all over. But here,” he brushes over Peter’s biceps. The dark bruises are too fresh in his memory. “It was all my handiwork. Maybe even some other places. I’ve never hated my powers more than when you were healing from them.”

“You- what?”

“I handled it all wrong. I was so focused on getting you out of there I didn’t think about anything else. About what it might be like for you.”

“Getting out? Getting out of the- of the- that place?”

“That place.” Steve closes his eyes for a moment. “I never want you to be afraid of me. I’ll eagerly spend the rest of my life trying to make it up for you.”

Peter’s brows knitted together. “But I hurt you! I punched you and I went all crazy…”

Steve shakes his head. “You were scared. You were defending yourself and I fucked up. I hurt you, Pete, and I will never stop being sorry for that.“

The quietly, almost inaudibly-

“So you don’t hate me?”

The way he said it, his voice and his expression – so timid and hopeful, made something inside Steve sink to the ground. Like 93 stories down to the ground and then lower, to the very heart of the Earth where it can peacefully burn to crisp.

Steve’s eyes burn with tears and it takes all of his strength not to go tumbling down the roof.

“I could never, Petey-pie, never, ever. I love you so much.”

Shortly after he says it, a welcome weight stumbles upon him and soon he’s holding an armful of Peter in his lap. A guttural sound escapes his throat, overwhelmed, as Peter settles himself flush to Steve and sobs into his neck.

“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I love you I’m sorry-“

Steve is torn between laughing and sobbing. He holds Peter as close as he can, feeling like a starved man. “Shh, I know, baby, I know. It’s okay. I missed you so much.”

He stiffens and Steve is convinced for a long moment he ruined it, but then Peter _melts_ into the embrace. Quick breaths and sobs tickle Steve’s neck where Peter is tucked in safely. Steve rubs circles onto his back, giving in to the overwhelming urge to hold his kid closer.

_God._ It feels like that first time when Tony agreed to adopt Peter but _more._ Steve feels the same giddiness, the same relief _and he can finally breathe_ because he gets to bring his kid home.

“I’m sorry,” Peter cries again. Between the three of them, Steve has yet to decide which one of them is the most stubborn.

“You have nothing to apologize for, baby bear.” Steve’s hand moves up to cradle his head. He wants to hold him, he wants to rock him, keep him, he can’t let go, not ever. They will stay forever on this roof at the top of the Avenger’s Tower, holding onto each other because Steve is sure he will never be able to let go of his kid.

He knows it’s futile, but he says anyway, “You have nothing to apologize for, sweetheart. _I am_ sorry.”

He is, he is for _everything_. How does he even put that in words, where does he start?

“Nuh, no – I was being weird. I – I freaked out, I freaked you out,” Peter mumbles into his shirt. “I freaked out, I am _so sorry_ – “

“Leave some sorrys to the rest of us, bubba. You’re hogging the word, it’s not fair.” He presses a kiss to Peter’s head because he finally can and it makes him giddy. Also, he can almost hear the whirl of thoughts inside his head. The boy is almost shaking with guilt.

“-but I was being weird, I – I didn’t talk to you and I made you think-“

“You didn’t make me do anything. I was worried, but it’s not – and could never – be your fault.” He rocks them as gently as he can, so gently it feels like they’re floating. “I will always be a little worried about you, you can’t help that.”

Peter’s next breaths still sound like whimpers. Steve helps him ride it out. “I was… horrible – to y-you.”

“No, no, Peter,” he slips his fingers into the boy’s hair soothingly. He hopes it’s soothing. “Something… _horrible_ happened to you. You have absolutely _nothing_ to apologize for. Petey. Seeing you there, in the medbay, and later in that cell – it was difficult, but please, please, don’t think that there was even a second where I wasn’t absolutely happy to have you safe and back with us.”

“But I heard you. I know you’re tired and I’m such a burden-“

Steve tightens his arms around Peter. “What do you mean? What did you hear?”

“Not- nevermind, I didn’t wanna- I wasn’t eavesdropping, I swear-“

Slowly but steadily Steve’s brain catches up.

This morning. He was making breakfast. Tony. Tony with sleep on his eyes but not his lips. Friday and the security alert.

He looks down and searches Peter’s face, the best he can as he’s tucked under his chin. “Is it about this morning?”

Peter whimpers and it’s enough of a confirmation for Steve.

_I just wish for one night of peace._

Oh.

_I know. Me too._

Oh _no._

“Peter,” he starts slowly. “I am so, _so_ sorry.”

He breathes into the brown curls, trying to steady himself. He squeezes his eyes shut and gathers his thoughts carefully. “Peter. This thing between us – between the three of us – it’s not conditional. We would never stop loving you because things got difficult. You are not a burden. You hear me? You are not a burden, baby. You are our child. Even if the legal papers never came through. Even if some greater entity came through the sky and said otherwise, they would be _wrong._ You’re ours and nothing, nothing will ever change that.”

He presses a lingering kiss to the crown of Peter’s head. Peter shakes in his arms, but it’s more than what Steve had in _weeks_ and he cries and is so grateful, he’s pretty sure his heart will give out in a moment. “That thing you heard – we didn’t mean it like that, sunshine. It came out all wrong. We could never be mad at you for that. You’re healing so well, Peter. You went through something horrifying and all we want is for you to get some peace. Some rest. Because you deserve it so much, sweetheart.”

“I’m not-“ Peter coughs. His throat sounds wet. “Not healing, though.”

Steve rocks them slowly with a soothing hum. “Of course you are. That’s why you have all these nightmares. I hate that you’re hurt and that you have to relive these horrors every night, but it’s a good thing. You’re healing. You’re finally safe. With us. Your mind needs to spew out all these horrors to heal. There’s no time limit for healing, baby, no deadline - you take all the time you need. I know it’s difficult. I can’t imagine how shitty it must feel, but Petey – from now on, it can only get better.”

He lets Peter ride out the last of his whimpers into his shirt.

Steve feels almost woozy. He feels ready to jump out of his skin, but that is an unnecessary thought. He’s right where he’s supposed to be. He’s curled around Peter’s small form, eager to shield him from the world.

He wants to laugh but shoves that idea far away. If he starts now, he might never stop, overwhelmed by relief and love he feels for the boy in his arms. He keeps him close to himself and breathes in his scent, feeling utterly drunk for the longest moment. He tries to compare that feeling to the one he felt when they found an empty room and an open window – but can’t find enough strength in himself to do that. This is enough. His kid is safe in his arms, and that is enough.

“You swear so much,” mumbles Peter suddenly.

Despite himself, Steve laughs. “Yeah. Sorry about that.”

“Iss weird.”

Steve loves him so much.

“I’m changing up my image a bit. You don’t like it?”

“I like you now.”

Oh well. It’s a good thing Steve gave his heart to Tony because it would make an exit in that moment.

“Really?” he mutters against Peter’s curls. “That’s good. I happen to like you too.”

Peter’s arms tighten around him. It’s not physically possible for them to get closer, but that doesn’t stop them from trying.

Steve presses a kiss to Peter’s head. “I really, really like you.”


End file.
